Korda's latest sweeping melodrama after Queenie is set in London theaters and Hollywood studios of the 1940s. The larger-than-life romantic leads in this compulsively readable roman a clef , Shakespearean actor Robert Vane and Oscar-winning beauty Felicia Lisle, are cloned from real-life stars Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. The supporting cast, notably Hollywood comic Randy Brooks; crude, magnetic impresario Marty Quick; British theater critic Guillam Pentecost; and Vane's greatest rivals on the London stage, actors Toby Eden and Philip Chagrin, are drawn as directly from other identifiable luminaries of the times. After performing together in Hamlet , Robbie and Lisha abandon their spouses and Lisha's daughter to live together in an extravaganza of passion and style, enduring a financially disastrous American tour of Romeo and Juliet, Lisha's breakdowns and possessiveness, Robbie's stint in the RAF and his increasing commitment to the theater. Their marriage 10 years later is followed by Robbie's knighthood, an affair and a murder--the plot spiced with enough sex homo-, hetero-, incest and a little S-M to provide an action-filled if ok predictable plot. Korda knows the milieu and keeps the pages turning.
