Lady L

As she approaches her 80th birthday, the sophisticated and still attractive Lady Lendale (widely known as "Lady L") recounts to her biographer, Sir Percy, the story of her life.

Fleeing her humble origins in Corsica, she travels to Paris, where she finds work in a brothel. There she falls in love with a thief and anarchist, Armand, and becomes pregnant by him. 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. He explains that several of his high society relatives are mad and he wants new blood in his family.

Lady L becomes a woman of means, moving in high society, and together she and Lord Lendale raise a large family and many of their children achieve high class positions. In the end, however, she reveals her secret: with Lord Lendale's help, she has continued to be the lover of Armand, who has fathered all their children while posing as the family's chauffeur.

• Sophia Loren as Lady Louise Lendale / Lady L
• Paul Newman as Armand Denis
• David Niven as Dicky, Lord Lendale
• Marcel Dalio as Sapper
• Cecil Parker as Sir Percy
• Philippe Noiret as Ambroise Gérôme
• Jacques Dufilho Dufilho as Bealu
• Eugene Deckers as Koenigstein
• Daniel Emilfork as Kobeleff
• Hella Petri as Madam
• Jean Wiener as Krajewski
• Roger Trapp as police inspector Dubaron
• Jean Rupert
• Joe Dassin as a police inspector
• Jacques Legras as a police inspector
• Mario Feliciani as Italian anarchist
• Sacha Pitoëff as Bomb-throwing revolutionary
• Arthur Howard as Butler
• Dorothy Reynolds
• Jacques Ciron
• Hazel Hughes
• Michel Piccoli as Lecoeur
• Claude Dauphin as Inspector Mercier
• Catherine Allégret as Pantoufle
• France Arnel as Brunette
• Dorothée Blank as Blonde girl
• Jean-Paul Cauvin as The Little Orphan
• Lo Ann Chan as the Chinese girl
• Sylvain Levignac
• Laurence Lignières as High society girl
• Tanya Lopert as Agneau
• Moustache as Delcour
• John Wood (uncredited) as the Photographer
• Jenny Orléans as Blonde girl
• Peter Ustinov as Prince Otto of Bavaria
• Janet Wilson as an extra

MGM spent $2 million on pre-production for the film before cancelling the project.^[4]

It was later restarted as an international co-production between France, Italy and the United Kingdom. Castle Howard in Yorkshire was used for the shooting of some scenes. Interiors were shot at the Victorine Studios in Nice.

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. Ustinov explains that one of reasons for the years-long delay in bringing the story to the screen was the grim ending. “ On paper, this scene, the book's climax, has the proper macabre touch,” Ustinov says, but it was feared that theater audiences would burst out laughing. After years of debate, Ustinov himself produced the solution: Cut it.^[5]

The film had its world premiere at the Empire, Leicester Square in the West End of London on 25 November 1965.^[6]

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 29% based on 7 contemporary and modern reviews. The New York Times is a notable exception, rating it 4 out of 5 fresh.^[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]

• Lady L at IMDb
• Lady L at AllMovie
• Lady L at the TCM Movie Database
• Lady L at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films