11 Harrowhouse

11 Harrowhouse
11 Harrowhouse promotional movie poster
Directed by	Aram Avakian
Produced by	Elliott Kastner Denis Holt (associate producer)
Written by	Jeffrey Bloom Charles Grodin (adaptation) Gerald A. Browne (novel)
Starring	Candice Bergen James Mason Charles Grodin
Music by	Michael J. Lewis
Cinematography	Arthur Ibbetson
Edited by	Anne V. Coates
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	1974 (1974)
Running time	94 min
Country	UK
Language	English

11 Harrowhouse is a 1974 British film directed by Aram Avakian. It was adapted by Charles Grodin based upon the novel by Gerald A. Browne with the screenplay by Jeffrey Bloom. It stars Charles Grodin, Candice Bergen, James Mason, Trevor Howard and John Gielgud.

Plot synopsis

In England, a small-time diamond merchant (Grodin) is unexpectedly offered the chance to supervise the purchase and cutting of an extremely large diamond to be named for its wealthy owner (Howard). When the diamond is stolen from him, he is blackmailed into pulling off a major heist at "The System," located at 11 Harrowhouse, with the help of his beautiful and wealthy girlfriend (Bergen). The key figure in the theft, however, is the inside man (Mason) who works in the vault at The System. He is dying of cancer and wants to leave his family financially secure.

Cast

• Charles Grodin as Howard R. Chesser
• Candice Bergen as Maren Shirell
• James Mason as Charles D. Watts
• Trevor Howard as Clyde Massey
• John Gielgud as Meecham

Reviews

Time Magazine reviewed the film positively, and described the cast as "poised and stylish."

Relevance

A prominent theme of the film revolves around how the primary world diamond producer controls the price of diamonds by creating artificial scarcity, much as oil producers do today.

Versions

The film has been screened in two versions in the past - both with and without a retrospective commentary from Grodin's character, H.R. Chesser. Only the version without commentary seems to be widely available in published form, and neither version seems to have been screened to great extent on TV, though the original version with commentary holds up very well today. The film was released on LaserDisc by Fox Video in Widescreen Format and with the commentary intact.

DVD release

On February 2, 2011 Shout! Factory is to release the film for the first time on DVD, but only on Region 1 (USA) Disc.

External links

• 11 Harrowhouse at IMDb
• 11 Harrowhouse at AllMovie