The Anglo-American film was directed by Guy Hamilton, who replaced Alexander Mackendrick,[3] and starred Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier.

Richard "Dick" Dudgeon (Kirk Douglas) is apostate and outcast from his family in colonial Websterbridge, New Hampshire, who returns their hatred with scorn.

After the death of his father, mistakenly hanged by the British as a rebel in nearby Springtown, Dick rescues his body from the gallows, where it had been left as an example to others.

Before a military tribunal, observed by General Burgoyne (Laurence Olivier), Dick is skeptical about British justice, pointing out the scaffolding being built to hang him.

Despite your deplorable error and the prisoner’s undoubted innocence at the start of the proceedings, you managed to provoke him into guilt by the end of them.

Reaching the village where Dick is about to be hanged, he presents a safe conduct from General Phillips, who the rebels have captured in Springtown.

The play was among those by George Bernard Shaw whose film rights were purchased by Gabriel Pascal in 1938; a planned production was announced several times in the years that followed.

[4] The rights were acquired from Pascal's estate by the production company of Burt Lancaster and Harold Hecht in 1955.

[4] In early August, the production company announced original director Alexander Mackendrick had been replaced by Guy Hamilton.

This adaptation "is, somewhat disappointingly, less the biting satire of the stage and more an unevenly paced comedy-melodrama leaning heavily toward action.