The Honey Pot

Adapted from a play out of a novel based on Ben Jonson's Volpone, Mankiewicz's screenplay finds a contemporary millionaire (Harrison in fine waspish form) inspired after a performance of Jonson's play to re-enact the same plot device on his three former mistresses (Hayward, Capucine and Adams) - posing as a dying man to test their reactions. The structure continually threatens to cave in under the weight of over-fussy dialogue and confusing plot twists, but the high-grade cast (with a pleasingly restrained Maggie Smith as the hypochondriac Hayward's nurse), and some sumptuous photography by Gianni Di Venanzo, make it highly watchable. If cinema and stage farce have to get in bed together, this is one of the more fruitful unions around.