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...
Newman is in Oscar winning form as a drinking, failing lawyer who insists on taking a no-hope malpractice case to trial rather than accepting a handsome out of court settlement. Castigated by those around him he seems on the road to failure, but, against all good sense, he keeps on trying and goes for broke. Convincing rather than realistic, emotive rather than analytical, this is a devastating judgement on the US judical system.
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