Screen legend Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights) delivers an Oscar-nominated, smashing performance in this riveting film that brought him his greatest contemporary role. Co-starring Albert Finney and Alan Bates (in their screen debuts), this powerful, thought-provoking and vividly theatrical film, true to its name, is supremely entertaining.

Career first. Everything else second. According to vaudevillian Archie Rice, the show must go on - even if it means stringing along his fellow performers, exploiting the hopes and money of a starlet and neglecting his own family. This is Archie's world...but not everyone wants to live in it. His only daughter (Joan Plowright) will do everything she can to break through and bring him around...if only she can make him listen.