The humorous title of this story taken from the novel by
Graham Greene gives the viewer the wrong impression. The story concerns the residents of a once-posh hotel in Haiti and the fate of the country's people under the despotic dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. Martha (
Elizabeth Taylor) is the philandering wife of a South American ambassador
Peter Ustinov. She seeks solace in the arms of hotel-owner Brown (
Richard Burton), whose main focus is to keep making improvements on his crumbling building.
Alec Guinness plays Jones, the suave charlatan who claims to be a retired military officer to hide his vocation as a shadowy weapons dealer. Brown later gets a sudden twinge of morality and decides to go off to the mountains to help the rebels in their heroic cause. Watch for silent film great
Lillian Gish as Mrs. Smith in this plodding drama. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide