Honestly, if you mention The Honey Pot to most modern movie buffs, you’ll probably get a blank stare. Or maybe they'll think you’re talking about a documentary on bees. It’s weird because this film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz—the same guy who did All About Eve—and it stars Rex Harrison at the height of his post-My Fair Lady fame. It’s a 1967 crime caper that feels like it was written by someone who spent way too much time reading Machiavelli and Volpone.
It's strange.
The film is basically a labyrinth inside a riddle, wrapped in a very expensive Venetian palace. It’s loosely based on the play Volpone by Ben Jonson, but Mankiewicz twists it into this meta-commentary on greed and performance. Rex Harrison plays Cecil Fox, a millionaire who fakes his own terminal illness to lure three former mistresses to his bedside. Why? Just to watch them squirm while they try to inherit his fortune. It’s petty. It's brilliant. It’s also incredibly long, clocking in at over two hours of dense, rapid-fire dialogue that makes The Social Network look like a silent film.
Why The Honey Pot Failed (And Why That Makes It Better)
When The Honey Pot hit theaters in May 1967, it tanked. Hard.
The critics didn’t know what to do with it. You have to remember the context of 1967 cinema—this was the year of The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. The "New Hollywood" era was exploding with grit and realism. Then comes Mankiewicz with this theatrical, dialogue-heavy, Shakespearean-adjacent mystery set in Venice. It felt like a relic from a different century.
But that’s exactly why people are rediscovering it now. It doesn't care about being "cool." It cares about being clever.
The plot kicks off when Fox hires an out-of-work actor named William McFly, played by a young, pre-Starsky & Hutch Antonio Fargas—wait, no, that’s not right. It’s actually Cliff Robertson who plays McFly. Robertson brings this grounded, cynical energy that balances out Harrison’s flamboyant cruelty. Together, they stage this elaborate "deathbed" scene. The three women who show up are played by Susan Hayward, Capucine, and Edie Adams. Each one represents a different flavor of desperation.
Maggie Smith is also in this.
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Yeah, that Maggie Smith. She plays Sarah Watkins, the nurse/companion to Susan Hayward’s character. This was years before she became the definitive Professor McGonagall or the Dowager Countess, but the sharp tongue is already there. She’s the only one who seems to see through the nonsense, and her chemistry with Harrison is the secret sauce of the whole movie.
The Problem With Modern Remakes and "A Haunting in Venice"
You might have noticed that Kenneth Branagh recently released A Haunting in Venice. If you felt a sense of déjà vu, it’s because both films draw from the same well: the Agatha Christie novel Hallowe'en Party and the play Mr. Fox of Venice.
But The Honey Pot is meaner.
It’s less of a "whodunnit" and more of a "why-they-doin'-it." Mankiewicz was obsessed with the idea of people performing for each other. In this film, every character is an actor. Cecil Fox is acting like he’s dying. McFly is acting like a secretary. The mistresses are acting like they care. It’s layers of deception that eventually lead to an actual murder, and that’s when the tone shifts from a dark comedy to a cold-blooded noir.
The pacing is deliberate. Some people call it slow. I call it atmospheric. You get to see Venice before it was completely overrun by modern mass tourism, captured by cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo. The palace feels damp. You can almost smell the canal water and the old velvet curtains.
The Mystery of the Missing Masterpiece
One of the biggest hurdles for The Honey Pot was its production history. Mankiewicz was coming off the disaster of Cleopatra, which nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox. He wanted a win. He poured everything into the script, which was actually an adaptation of a play called Mr. Fox of Venice by Frederick Knott, which was based on a novel called The Evil of the Day by Thomas Sterling, which was based on Volpone.
It’s a lot of source material.
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Because of this "nested" origin, the movie feels incredibly dense. There are moments where the characters literally stop to explain the literary references they are making. It’s arrogant filmmaking. It assumes the audience is well-read and patient. In 1967, audiences wanted to see Dustin Hoffman running through an airport, not Rex Harrison quoting 17th-century satire in a bathrobe.
However, the film has a cult following for a reason.
The ending—without giving too much away—is one of the most cynical "gotcha" moments in 60s cinema. It subverts the entire trope of the clever detective. It suggests that even when the truth comes out, the person with the most money still wins, or at least, the person with the most patience.
Key Details You Might Have Missed
- The Clock Motif: Pay attention to the timepieces throughout the film. Fox is obsessed with time because he is "dying." The sound design often emphasizes ticking, which ratchets up the anxiety even when nothing is happening.
- The "Fox" Imagery: The movie is obsessed with its own metaphor. Cecil Fox has fox paintings, fox sculptures, and a fox-like temperament. It’s not subtle, but it works.
- Susan Hayward’s Performance: This was one of her final big roles. She plays a wealthy Texan who is loud, brash, and completely unaware that she’s being played. It’s a tragic performance if you look closely enough.
How to Watch It Today
Finding a high-quality version of The Honey Pot used to be a nightmare. For years, it was stuck in licensing limbo. Thankfully, Kino Lorber released a Blu-ray a few years back that cleaned up the image significantly. You can actually see the detail in the woodwork of the Venetian sets now.
If you're going to watch it, do it on a rainy Sunday.
Don't check your phone. The dialogue moves so fast that if you look away for a second, you’ll miss the setup for a joke or a plot point that pays off an hour later. It’s a "lean-in" movie.
What really sticks with you is the sense of isolation. Despite being set in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, 90% of the film takes place inside the palace. It’s claustrophobic. It makes the characters turn on each other like rats in a gilded cage.
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Actionable Takeaways for Cinephiles
If you’re a fan of the mystery genre or Mankiewicz’s work, here is how to approach The Honey Pot to get the most out of it:
- Read a summary of Volpone first. You don’t need to read the whole play, but knowing the basic premise of a wealthy man tricking legacy hunters will help you catch the inside jokes Mankiewicz hid in the script.
- Compare it to Sleuth. Mankiewicz directed Sleuth (1972) a few years later. Watching them back-to-back shows a director who was perfecting the "closed-room game" genre.
- Watch the background. The production design is world-class. The art direction wasn't just for show; the items in Fox's room tell you more about his character than his dialogue does.
- Ignore the runtime. Yes, it’s long. Yes, the middle section drags a bit when the police investigator arrives. Stick with it. The final fifteen minutes recontextualize everything you just saw.
The film is a reminder that Hollywood used to take big, weird risks on intellectual properties. It’s not a perfect movie—it’s too long and arguably too smart for its own good—but it’s an experience. In an era of cookie-cutter sequels, a film like The Honey Pot stands out as a bizarre, beautiful anomaly.
Go find the Kino Lorber restoration. Sit through the long monologues. Let Rex Harrison’s smugness wash over you. It’s a masterclass in how to build a mystery without relying on explosions or cheap jumpscares. It’s all about the words, the greed, and the inevitable sting at the end.
That's the real magic of it. You think you’re watching a comedy until you realize you’re watching a tragedy, and by then, the trap has already snapped shut. It’s a heist movie where the only thing being stolen is the audience's expectations. Truly, they don't make them like this anymore.
Next Steps for Deep Diving into 60s Mystery:
- Research Joseph L. Mankiewicz's later filmography to see how he transitioned from grand epics to intimate, stage-like thrillers.
- Locate the 2014 Blu-ray release for the best visual experience, as streaming versions often suffer from poor compression which ruins the dark, atmospheric lighting of the Venetian palace.
- Compare the dialogue styles between this and All About Eve to identify the director’s signature "literary" wit.
The legacy of the film persists not in its box office numbers, but in its influence on the "closed-room" mystery subgenre that continues to thrive today through directors like Rian Johnson and Kenneth Branagh. Understanding the DNA of this 1967 flop is the key to understanding where the modern mystery obsession began.