Napoleon on St Helena is an interesting coda to a fascinating life though you've got to jazz it up for drama because he did just hang around - proposed escape plans didn't happen. This has Napoleon root two women, Billie Whitelaw (an ex mistress) and also Georgia Hale (the real life Betsy which is a bit of a slander and pervy). It also adds John Gielgud as a diplomat offering Napoleon a chance to return. I think this was made up.
The TV original starred Trevor Howard who would've been better as Napoleon than Kenneth Haigh who just lacks X factor. Haigh is fine but the show needed a star. Was the TV version this pervy? Presumably they wanted someone more sexy.
It feels like a television play - some chats in rooms. They do have some outside scenes and an escape sequence and swim on the ebach but that's about it. Some nice shots of redcoats on clifftips - but Fielder Cook at heart was a televisio director.
I kind of didn't know the point of it. But John Gielgud livens things up in the third actor, Ralph Richardson is fun, and Whitelaw, Hale and the others are good. Moses Gunn plays a black general which has some basis in fact.
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