Details

Release year: 1991

Storyline

Reverend Francis Ashby (Sir Michael Palin), a senior Oxford don on vacation alone in the Alps, meets vacationing American Miss Caroline Hartley (Connie Booth) and her companion Miss Elinor Hartley (Trini Alvarado), the blossoming Irish-American girl she adopted many years before. Ashby finds he enjoys their company, particularly that of Elinor, and both of the women are drawn to him. Back at Oxford he is nevertheless taken aback when they arrive unannounced. Women are not allowed in the College grounds, let alone the rooms. Indeed any liaison, however innocent, is frowned on by the upstanding Fellows.

Top credits

Directors

Tristram Powell

Writers

Cast

Bryan Pringle — Haskell
Fred Pearson — Hapgood
Michael Palin — Reverend Francis Ashby
Alfred Molina — Oliver Syme

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Did you know

• Sir Michael Palin says that the plot was taken from a real-life incident involving his great-grandfather.

• Michael Palin's script was inspired by a diary note of his great-grandfather, Edward Palin, who in 1866 resigned from St. John's College, Oxford, to marry an Irish-American girl he had met with her guardian on a walking tour in the Alps five years earlier.

• The character of Miss Caroline Hartley was originally a much older woman and the role was offered to Anne Bancroft, who turned it down. Ellen Burstyn was then offered the part before the character was completely re-written.