We are old enough to remember Malcolm Muggeridge and were amazed to see his part in this film based on fact. You need to Google him and Wodehouse to find background to the film if your under 75 and know nothing about P. G. Great acting by all involved.
Mrs Wodehouse ( Zoe Wanamaker) had some wonderful costumes Where did she get the coupons?
Another thing to Google if you haven't heard how they contributed to the war effort.
Plot summary
At the start of World War Two English humorist P.G. Wodehouse and his wife Ethel are living in France but fail to escape the invading Germans when their car breaks down. Wodehouse is sent to an internment camp in Poland where he entertains his fellow inmates with his witty anecdotes so that A German who met him in America suggests that Wodehouse be allowed to broadcast to the Americans - not yet in the war - thus giving the impression that the Third Reich is not so monstrous. Under the guise of his being sixty Wodehouse is released and sent to Berlin to make his broadcasts,which abound in political naivety,and he is shocked when a fellow internee whom he suspects of actively working for the Nazis is released. He comes to feel that he has been used. Ethel travels to Berlin and they move to Paris,where,as the war ends,Wodehouse learns that Ethel's daughter Leonora,has died, A further blow is the knowledge that he may be tried for treason but finds a sympathetic interrogator in secret service officer Malcolm Muggeridge,who arranges for his release from custody. Though Wodehouse is never charged he is made to feel unwelcome in Britain as artists and political commentators register their scorn for his alleged treachery. As a result he and Ethel move to America and never set foot in Britain again.
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No not boring.
PG Wodehouse an Innocent Unwitting Pawn
As a person who enjoys Masterpiece Theater productions, I saw this film highlighted on Prime and decided to watch it. I knew little about PG Wodehouse, only that he wrote a popular character called Jeeves who is a butler and a rather scornful butler at that. Wodehouse appears to have been a very nice man who was wrongly accused of aiding the enemy during WWII. Specifically the Germans and not by being a spy but by unwittingly agreeing to do radio broadcasts to let his American public know that he has escaped harm after being released from a German civilian internment camp. The subsequent radio broadcasts are misunderstood by the British and are seen unfavorably bordering on treason. The film is well cast and the characters fleshed out. It is a beautiful portrait of the author who only realizes that he has been used once his wife has reunited with him in Berlin and she explains it to him in no uncertain terms. This quiet film is truly enjoyable even though it is a story tinged with sadness and regret.
Fantastic acting
One of the best movies I have seen in a long time. What others have criticized as "cardboard, cartoonish and lifeless," I find as being consistent with characters being presented. An innocent man/child in a bewilderingly serious world he is not part of and can only marginally relate to.
Whether this characterization is accurate to the real man is almost irrelevant. The world is a dark place and the only way he can relate to it is by jokes and the only way he can cope is by describing its absurdities.