"Dr Fischer of Geneva" began life as a short novel by Graham Greene. Written in 1980 (Greene died in 1984) it is a dark satire. Dr Fischer (James Mason) is a multi-millionaire, his fortune founded on human hygiene. At regular parties he surrounds himself with acolytes, all rich, all prepared to go through humiliation for one of Fischer's gifts. Fischer is cold, cruel, manipulative.

Fischer's daughter Anna-Luise (Greta Scacchi) is a gentle creature abhorring her father's attitude and more particularly the attitude of those acolytes of Fischer (she calls them "toads"). She falls in love with and marries Alfred Jones (Alan Bates), an Englishman who has suffered tragedies (a childhood war mutilation; the loss of his wife and child) and is immune to Fischer's attempts to corrupt him.

Determined to prove that even the most righteous person can be bought, Dr Fischer plans an ultimate party with a strange and diabolical twist. The party favors contain one of two things--a cheque for $5 million Swiss francs, or a lethal bomb.

Directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, with a stellar cast including Bates, Mason in one of his final roles (he died in Lausanne in 1984), Cyril Cusack, Greta Scacchi, Hugh Burden, Mason's second wife Clarissa Kaye, and Barrie Humphries, in one of his non-Dame Edna appearances.

In November 2004 Greta Scacchi was asked "Who made your heart skip a beat when you were 14?"

Her answer: "Alan Bates, in Far From the Madding Crowd and The Go-Between. And the extraaordinary thing for me was that within two years of becoming an actor, I got to play his wife in Dr Fischer of Geneva. When I met him, I felt as though I knew him intimately already."

Scacchi was 24 when Dr Fischer was filmed; Bates was 50.