Libel

Sir Mark (Sir Dirk Bogarde) and Lady Margaret Loddon (Olivia de Havilland) and their adolescent son Michael (Sebastian Saville) live in Ingworth Hall, a grand country estate in the County of Dorset, England. Mark and Maggie were engaged prior to World War II, and were married after the war after Mark returned after a prison escape and hospitalization. Mark is a tortured soul, struggling with a repressed memory from the war, when he spent time in a P.O.W. camp. He admits having a spotty memory about much of his life prior to the P.O.W. camp. That repressed memory also involves a tune that often runs through his head, hearing it is a source of great anxiety. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Buckenham (Paul Massie), a Canadian commercial airline pilot on a two-day layover in London, sees the couple on television, and is certain that Mark is not who he says he is, but rather a man named Frank Welney (Sir Dirk Bogarde). Jeffrey confronts Mark about his fraudulent identity directly, threatening to expose him. Mark admits to recognizing Jeffrey as a friend and fellow prisoner from that P.O.W. camp and recognizing the name Frank Welney as another prisoner, but that is all he will admit. To get the story into the public consciousness, Jeffrey takes it to the media, one of the British rags. Although Mark initially wants to ignore the story, he finally decides on his wife Maggie's urging for Michael's sake to sue Jeffrey for libel, which is exactly what Jeffrey was hoping to expose him as truly being Frank Welney. Behind the scenes, Jeffrey is supported by Mark's cousin, Captain Gerald Loddon (Anthony Dawson), a car dealer who would have inherited the estate if Mark did not return from war, although he does not want Mark to know that he is working against him. During the course of the trial, Mark, Jeffrey and Frank's story is told, which may finally put together the pieces for Mark about that spotty memory, and the truth whether he is Sir Mark or Frank.