The Shooting Party
1985·United Kingdom·98 min.
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This British Merchant-Ivory look-alike was adapted from a novel by Isabel Colgate. In the summer before World War I, British nobleman James Mason invites an assorted group of acquaintances for a weekend shooting party on his huge estate. Among the participants are longtime rivals Edward Fox and Rupert Frazer, Fox's occasionally unfaithful wife Cheryl Campbell, and staunch anti-hunting advocate John Gielgud. The film unfolds in a carefully calculated but seemingly spontaneous fashion, in the manner of its 1938 ancestor Rules of the Game. Also like the earlier film, The Shooting Party casts a jaundiced eye towards class consciousness--and ends with a sudden, senseless but not altogether unexpected tragedy.
DirectorAlan Bridges
MusicJohn Scott
CinematographyFred Tammes
CastJames Mason·Edward Fox·John Gielgud·Dorothy Tutin·Gordon Jackson·Cheryl Campbell·Robert Hardy·Aharon Ipalé
Original titleThe Shooting Party