THE HONEY POT 1967

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""The Honey Pot" was an uneasy mixture of farce, satire, comedy and whodunnit, with insufficient of any of the ingredients to justify its 150 minutes. The screenplay by director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (who also co-produced with Charles K. Feldman) was based on the play "Mr. Fox Of Venice" by Frederick Knott, derived in turn from the novel "The Evil Of The Day " by Thomas Sterling, itself an updated version of "Volpone" by Ben Johnson (obviously giddy in his grave). The 20th century fox film starred Rex Harrison, as Cecil Fox, a millionaire living in isolation in a palazzo in Venice. With the help of an actor, William McFly (Cliff Robertson), he plans to trick three former mistresses by pretending he is on his death bed. They are a fading film star (Edie Adams), a princess (Capucine), and a wealthy hypochrondriac (Susan Hayward). The latter is murdered, and her secretary, (Maggie Smith) unmasks Fox's plot and the killer. Other roles went to Adolfo Celi, Herschel Bernardi and Hugh Manning. Occasionally, amidst the tedium, a vintage Mankiewicz line would flash by, but it was the Technicolor photography of Venice by the great cinematographer Gianni De Venanzo that made the original title of the picture, Anyone For Venice?, seem more appropriate.------excerpted from "The United Artists Story", by Ronald Bergan--Crown Publishers Inc., New York..

SUSAN AND CAPUCINE

CLIFF ROBERTSON EDIE ADAMS SUSAN

John Wayne and Susan in "The Fighting Seabees" (still from colorized version-- original film in glorious black and white) - 1944

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