The man who lived at the Ritz

Another work of fiction about the Second World War also features David McCullum as the live in son of the owner of the Ritz Hotel who has a large model railway with a resistance radio hidden in a tunnel. There are cameo performances by Leslie Caron as Coco Chanel and one of my favourite actors, the gorgeous Cherie Lunghi also has role. The great casting is Josh Ackland as Hermann Georing in charge of the Lourve and raiding the art of France to make available to his Nazi comrades as well as developing his own collection.

 

The man who lived at the Ritz is an art student from the USA with an inheritance who remains in Paris despite the arrival of the Nazis and continues to enjoy the high life of the city available to those with the cash. He becomes a friend of Hermann Goering and advises on the authenticity of the paintings as well as helping the man to uncover a scam in which pictures are beings stolen. Other characters who the student meets include Edith Piaf, Man Ray and Pierre Monet, He becomes involved with the resistance via a love interest and has to go on the run.  He is captured and brought to face Ackland who had come to regard the young man as his son after helping him to uncover the theft of artworks.

 

Before this he has an encounter with Joseph Goebbels on a visit to Paris by special train with his mistress having been introduced by Goering so when he is able to escape from the clutches of the Gestapo after giving himself up to save his girl friend and then by good fortune is taken to the station to be killed in front of a train he sees Goebbels about to return to Germany and is invited into his train to advise on a picture he has acquired. Geobbels then rescues him from his captors and when the train is stopped at the border and the truth of his guest is revealed to him he finds that the man has escaped from the train.  He is then shown with his girl friend fighting with the resistance. This TV film is based on a novel. I need say no more