So, with our all-star cast in place, back to our story: Charity befriends young David and takes him on some local excursions. (use your imagination to replace Lassie with a nondescript mutt named Rommel)

Louis Jourdan, as the drop dead good-looking Frenchman Paul Very:Īnd finally, Tommy Rettig (of 'Lassie' fame) as David, Richard Byron's son: Jayne Mansfield, as the French femme fatale Loraine:

and now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, was waiting in the wings for the lights to go up again, on the last kill that would bring the final curtain down.So, since we're talking a 1950-ish play here, let's cast the main roles: In the part of Charity, we have Grace Kelly:ĭespite her penchant for alpha men, Charity is a capable person who spends much of the story driving around the south of France like a maniac, so:įor Charity's lazy, 'plump and fair' friend Louise, I've found this unnamed 1950's plus-size model:Ĭary Grant as Richard Byron, the sinister (and possibly mad) suspected murderer who chases her across half of France: For most of the play had been played already there had been love and lust and revenge and fear and murder. And though the part I was to play in the tragedy was to break and re-form the pattern of my whole life, yet it was a very minor part, little more than a walk-on in the last act. Little do they know the murderous plots they are stumbling into, in this small, sleepy French town. They begin their leisurely vacation with a stay in the lovely walled city of Avignon, France: It's about 1950, and Charity, a young English widow (her husband died in WWII), is traveling with her former co-worker, Louise. This is my second-favorite* Mary Stewart book, one of her best old-fashioned romantic suspense novels. *2022 buddy read in the Mary Stewart group, starting today, April 1.

Madam, Will You Talk? by Mary Stewart