Mason is wonderful in this wonderful film

I love this movie and keep returning to it. Mason is terrific - who knew that Mr. Saturnine could do comedy? He is delicious in it, sexy and charming. The writing is superb, as only the Brits can do it. All of the supporting cast are excellent, another characteristic of British films. Mason should have stayed in the UK; all of his best films were made there. Hollywood didn't know what to do with him, and cast him in great, big cinemascoped, technicolored extravanganzas that were unworthy of his consummate acting skills. And, of course, never appreciated or honored him as he was simply too intelligent, too educated, and too complex to appeal to American audiences. He was an antihero (or, as one reviewer put it, "the first thespian badass" before the term was even heard of in Hollywood. Today, antiheros are de riguor, but Mason was the first.