“Fedora, based on a segment of Thomas Tryon's best-selling ‘Crowned Heads'...is the story of an aging independent producer named Barry Detweiler who journeys to Corfu in search of Fedora, a Garbo-like screen beauty who retired and secluded herself from the world at the height of an illustrious career. The Polish-born actress is said to be between 60 and 80 with the looks of a woman half her age. Unlike the Gloria Swanson character of Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, Fedora has no ambition to return to her former glory. It is Detweiler, played by William Holden (Swanson's kept flatterer in that earlier film), who is desperate to stage a comeback with Fedora as his decoy.
“There is splendid visual irony to the setting of a drama about the dogged, ill-fated fight against old age on an island as rich in natural beauty as Corfu.” --Diane Jacobs, Soho Weekly News