It is the autumn of 1913, and as the war clouds gather over Europe, a cross section of the English nobility gathers at Sir Randolph Nettleby's estate for a weekend's shoot. The symbolic correlation between the mass destruction of feathered innocents and the slaughter soon to ensue in France seems a little cruder onscreen than it did in Isabel Colegate's subtle novel of manners, as do the human dramas played out around the mansion. But as Sir Randolph, the late James Mason, whose last performance this was, is superb in his distracted eccentricity, especially in a scene with John Gielgud, who...
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