The film opens with a short fragment outside the plot. Grainy, black-and-white, and silent, a title "Once Upon a Time" leads to peasant labourers in an unnamed country picking coffee beans while armed foremen pu… See more

Many of the actors play several roles.
• Malcolm McDowell as Michael Arnold "Mick" Travis / Plantation thief
• Ralph Richardson as Monty / Sir James Burgess
• Rachel Roberts as Gloria Rowe / Madame Paillard / M… See more

The film originally began as a script written by McDowell about his experiences as a coffee salesman in his late teens and early 20s. Anderson was unhappy with this treatment, and David Sherwin worked on the script. Sher… See more