It's the off-season at the lonely Beauregard Hotel in Bournemoth, and only the long-term tenants are still in residence. Life is stirred up, however, when the beautiful Ann Shankland arrives to see her alcoholic ex-husband, John Malcolm, who is secretly engaged to Pat Cooper, the woman who runs the hotel. Meanwhile, snobbish Mrs Railton-Bell discovers that the kindly if rather doddering Major Pollock, played by David Niven, who won an Oscar for his performance, a retired officer who likes to find out more...
A timeless ant-war parable that looks at public reaction when the hair of an American war orphan mysteriously turns green. This makes him an object of ridicule in his small town, where the locals call for the boy's head to be shaved. There is an interesting coda to this wonderful and unusual film: Producer Dore Schary and director Joseph Losey made it for RKO before the politically conservative Howard Hughes took over. Hughes hated the film's pacifist message, and did his best to sabotage it find out more...
