White Mischief

White Mischief is a 1987 British drama film starring Greta Scacchi, Charles Dance and Joss Ackland. It was directed by Michael Radford. The film was based upon the non-fiction book White Mischief: The Murder of Lord Erroll (1982), by James Fox, which originated from a newspaper article published in 1969. The film dramatises the events of the Happy Valley murder case in Kenya in 1941, wherein Sir Henry “Jock” Delves Broughton was tried for the murder of Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll. The cast also includes Sarah Miles, Geraldine Chaplin, and Ray McAnally, Murray Head, John Hurt, and Trevor Howard. Plot Throughout the Second World War, aristocrats in the Kenya Colony's Happy Valley region often led hedonistic lifestyles of indulgence in alcohol, drugs, and extramarital relationships.  On 24 January 1941, Josslyn Hay, the philandering Earl of Erroll, was found dead in his car in a secluded area, with his reputation for adulterous relationships preceding him. One such married woman is Diana Delves Broughton, the beautiful wife of Sir John Henry Delves Broughton, known as "Jock", who is thirty years her senior, with whom she has a pre-nuptial understanding that, should either of them fall in love with someone else, the other party would not impede that romance.