Starring Sophia Loren, Paul Newman, David Niven and Cecil Parker,[2] the film focuses on an elderly Corsican lady as she recalls the loves of her life, including an anarchist and an English aristocrat.

But before he can use a bomb to assassinate a Bavarian prince, she meets the wealthy Lord Lendale, who is so enchanted by the young woman that he offers to help her and Armand escape if she will agree to marry him.

In a January 24, 1965 article in The New York Times, headlined “At Home with Lady L,” Ustinov and the cast discuss various aspects of the production, while filming in France.

[7] In that May 19, 1966 review in The New York Times, Eliot Fremont-Smith called it “a film of great wit, urbane elegance, and fast-paced nuttiness, a charming romantic fantasy shot through with comedy.

But it is also a shocking and disturbing film, oddly demented and macabre….” Fremont-Smith lavishes high praise on the “virtuoso” Peter Ustinov in his multiple responsibilities, but finds other cast members to be miscast, with the exception of Niven as Lord Lendale, a role “that combines manliness, sophistication and unselfish charm with terrible suspicions of impotence and gnawing loneliness—and that Mr. Niven performs without a flaw…” Thanks to Ustinov, he says, “The pacing is fast, the wit is sure, the scenes are gorgeous and the use, or control, of color is nothing less than breath-taking.…reasons enough for going to see this imperfect, droll, rewarding and technically very interesting entertainment.”[8]