The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964 Anthony Asquith)

Reteaming of Asquith with Rattigan (The Way to the Stars, The Browning Version and The Winslow Boy). The latter is at it again with three tender-tragic stories of lost love, using a 1930 Rolls Royce Sedanca de Ville as a linking device (which makes me wonder when the stories are set - episode two seems to be the twenties?)

Rex Harrison buys car for wife Jeanne Moreau, unaware she's having an affair with Edmund Purdom, with Ascot races as backdrop. With Michael Hordern and Lance Percival in the car showroom, Moira Lister as gossip, Gregoire Aslan an ambassador and Roland Culver the butler.

"With the phone on the left, of course!"

Gangster's moll Shirley Maclaine is wooed by hustler Alain Delon as they travel through Italy. Chauffeur Art Carney (good) has to intervene to protect her from George C. Scott. (Not sure where they end up in the story but it's clearly Positano).

And finally American society lady Ingrid Bergman (great) ends up getting mixed up with Yugoslavian partisans led by Omar Sharif. She doesn't actually end up carrying a gun, but almost! With Joyce Grenfell and Carlo Croccolo as the driver.

Filmed partly on sets (e.g. blue lagoon) and partly on location. Usual plush MGM values shot by Jack Hildyard in Metrocolor and Panavision, with Gerry Fisher as an operator. The music and theme song are by Riz Ortolani. I found it all rather touching and affecting, much more than just a cobbling together of stories.