(1979) A pair of cousins from Europe, Felix Young (Tim Woodward) and his sister Eugenia (Lee Remick), arrive at the home of William Wentworth (Wesley Addy), seven and a half miles from Boston. From her birthplace in Vienna, Eugenia at an early age became the Baroness Munster, married to a German prince, whose family wishes to dissolve the union; bohemian Felix, born in France, lacking position, fortune, or future, has been a fiddler, an actor, and a portraitist.

They have come to seek their rich American relations in hopes of winning favor through their worldly sophistication and cultural immersion. However, Mr Wentworth is a no-nonsense Emersonian Unitarian ("We must be careful"), who conducts himself with utmost restraint and severe politeness. He requests a promise from his "peculiar" daughter Gertrude (Lisa Eichorn) please not to get "excited" about having foreign kin, whom he agrees to allow residence in "the other house"; but she in her innocence is already full of anxious anticipation, especially with regard to Felix.

From a novel by Henry James (who as a frustrated playwright might feel gratification and vindication in having several of his fictions made into movies), screenplay by Ruth Prawer Jhabrala, this Merchant/Ivory Masterpiece-like production in its exquisite attention to scenery, music, and imagery takes place in the 1840s, inside the Wentworth home decorated in the Dutch style and outside ornamented with the colors of New England autumn.

Finding Felix in the studio painting Gertrude's picture, Mr Wentworth speaks to his daughter of "idleness" among the "Legion" (a reference to Mark 5:9). Though the Unitarian minister, Mr Brand (Norman Snow), declares his love for Gertrude, she neither reciprocates his feeling nor attends his church services. He then seeks solace with her sister Charlotte (Nancy New).

Mr Wentworth's other nearby relations include the very sensible Robert Acton (Robin Ellis) - "What I'd like to know," referring to Eugenia, "just what is the devil that brought her here" - and his attractive younger sister Lizzie (Kristin Griffith). Nevertheless, Robert soon finds himself enjoying Eugenia's company; she hints at having to do no more than sign and send off a document of renunciation to end her marriage, were he to encourage her.

"We'll marry them off," Felix suggests to Gertrude a concerted plan to bring together Charlotte and Mr Brand, who reads to the family of dangerous associations with foreign temptations. Charlotte expresses dismay at Gertrude's changed character in wanting pleasure and amusement as being "wicked."

Employing further connivance, Felix draws Mr Wentworth's son Clifford (Tim Choate), the future heir, into Eugenia's web, to distract his affections from Lizzie and alcohol with his clever sister's "superior form of intoxication."

Frustrated with these quiet, dull Americans - in a conversation with Robert's mother (Helen Stenborg), she mentions wanting a Negress cook to add local color to her picturesque dwelling - Eugenia admits to Robert her being "out of tune" with the family, singing too loud.

Asked if he will consent to the betrothal of Gertrude to the shabby and frivolous Felix, Mr Wentworth exclaims: "Where are our moral grounds?"

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