Eagle in a Cage

Plot summary

After his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and surrender to the British Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte is delivered into exile and imprisonment on St. Helena, setting the scene for a psychological character study of the fallen Emperor and those upon the island with him as he rakes over the ashes of his career. After a failed escape attempt, the British Government offers him a chance for a return to limited power in France once again as a buffer against instability there; however, on the point of departure he is afflicted by the symptoms of stomach cancer and the offer is in consequence withdrawn, leaving him entrapped on the island and exiting history's stage.

Cast

Kenneth Haigh as Napoleon Bonaparte

John Gielgud as Lord Sissal

Ralph Richardson as Sir Hudson Lowe

Billie Whitelaw as Madame Bertrand

Moses Gunn as General Gaspard Gourgaud

Ferdy Mayne as Count Henri Gatien Bertrand

Lee Montague as Cipriani

Georgina Hale as Betsy Balcombe

Michael Williams as Barry Edward O'Meara

Hugh Armstrong as British soldier

Athol Coats as Sentry

1965 Television Play

Lampell had written an episode of East Side, West Side that was admired by George Schaefer, producer of Hallmark's Hall of Fame. He commissioned Lampell to write an original script. The play aired in 1965 starring Trevor Howard as Napoleon and Pamela Franklin as Betsy.

Howard, Lampell, and Franklin were nominated for Emmies. Lampell won. When he accepted it he said "I think I ought to mention that I was blacklisted." This led to the New York Times offering Lampell the chance to write an article about the blacklist. The incident is credited as helping draw mainstream public attention to the existence of the blacklist and contributing to its end.

Production

Howard Barnes, an executive for Group W who knew Lampell in radio, contacted the author suggesting his television play would make an ideal film and they had an investor willing to put up half the money. Lampell said his adaptation "meant really rewriting pretty much everything, because there’s such a vast difference between what works on television and what works as a theatrical feature." The other financier fell through but Group W agreed to fully finance if Lampell agreed to produce.

Lampell wrote the part of the black general specifically for Moses Gunn who had been in a play of his, Hard Traveling. " There were actually black generals in Napoleon’s army, from Haiti and elsewhere, although not with Napoleon on St. Helena," said Lampell.

The original plan was to film in Italy but this proved too expensive so the film was shot in Yugoslavia.

Reception

Lampell later thought, "Gielgud was wonderful, so was Richardson, so was Billie. Kenneth Haigh, who was a talented actor, just wasn’t up to the part of Napoleon, however, and that hurt the film."

The New York Times wrote "It should be obvious that the film-maker's imagination working at this level will create roles to tax the most imaginative of actors. But from his awesome cast, with a few exceptions, what he generally gets is a fairly professional elaboration of clichés."

Variety called it "a dramatically fascinating entry for the class market." The Los Angeles Times said it was "completely involving."