WHITE MISCHIEF

It always surprises me when people tell me they haven't seen (or even heard of) the 1988 film WHITE MISCHIEF because it's long been a favorite of mine. Based on actual incidents that occurred in Kenya in 1941 the film mixes money, sex and murder in a powerful cocktail served up by an extraordinary cast. British emigres fleeing the war own vast spreads of African territory. Bored to tears in the 'wasteland' of colonial Nairobi, a clique develops dedicated to polo matches, casual sex, wife-swapping, cross-dressing, heavy drinking and gambling large sums on horse racing. Into this Happy Valley crowd come Sir Jock Delves Broughton (Joss Ackland) and his gorgeous much-younger wife Diana (Greta Scacchi). Diana has dug for gold - "I like older men; they have more money," she tells Hughie (Hugh Grant) - and thinks she's found it in Sir Jock but actually his fortunes are on the decline.

Diana's beauty captivates everyone in Nairobi, in particular Joss (Charles Dance) a notorious womanizer even by Happy Valley standards ("...speaking of big game: he's one of the biggest in the colony..."). Quickly smitten with one another, their affair becomes more and more blatant causing Sir Jock considerable embarrassment, especially in view of his longtime friendship with Joss. Jock tries to put a good face on things but as indignities are heaped upon him by his wife and her lover (while in the meantime continually receiving bad financial news from England) he reaches a breaking point.

Jock (Joss Ackland) graciously 'gives' Diana to Joss at a dinner party and has to be driven home afterwards where he passes out, supposedly dead drunk. That night, Joss is murdered. Since all Nairobi knows of the affair between his wife and Joss, Jock is the prime suspect. The courtroom scenes portray shifting alliances among the Happy Valley crowd. Jock is acquitted. But the story doesn't end there.    

Sarah Miles as Alice de Janze is one of the many colorful characters in this film. Despite the seeming 'sexual Disneyland' atmosphere in Happy Valley, Alice was in fact deeply in love with Joss. After his death, she appears at the morgue and 'marks' his corpse in a bizarre sexual rite. At the trial, Alice's name is mentioned as the potential murderer because she was so jealous of Diana; but the prosecutor declares that Alice has been discounted as a suspect on the grounds that "she was in bed with a gentleman" at the time ("But we weren't doing ANYTHING!" Alice cries out from the gallery.) Once Jock is acquitted, Alice gives way to despair. On the terrace of her house, she looks up at a gorgeous African sunrise and moans: "Oh God! Not another fucking beautiful day!"  She eventually finds peace.

Geraldine Chaplin (left) is featured among a really engrossing cast as Nina Soames. Married to a very rich old voyeur (Trevor Howard) Nina has found comfort in a very subtly referenced affair with her hunk of an Kenyan houseboy. Nina is high-strung, curious, direct: "Do you sleep with your husband?" she asks Diana in the course of their first conversation. Another dazzling actress, Susan Fleetwood, plays Gwladys, a society woman who has gotten herself elected Mayor of Nairobi. Fleetwood, sister of rocker Mick Fleetwood, died of cancer at an early age depriving us of years of classic appearances such as her finely-drawn Lady Russell in PERSUASION. John Hurt is Colville, an eccentric who has 'gone native' and who also happens to be the richest man in Kenya. His unkempt appearance and ignorance of social skills prompts Gwladys to say: " Every time I see his fingernails I thank God I don't have to look at his feet!"

Colville plays a surprising role in the ultimate resolution of the story once Diana has been tipped off to the truth about her lover's murder by a photograph she sees at Colville's house. An added attraction of the film is the score, laced with familiar nightclub tunes from the era.