Joan Fontaine stars as the indelicate heroine of this Daphne Du Maurier story about a beautiful English matron who bemuses the accomplice of a French pirate operating off the Cornish coast. According to the National Film Theatre notes, Leisen undertook the project reluctantly, and "saved (it) from failure only by massive visual compensation.... (He) lavished attention on period detail, landscape and daring color composition. The production soared over budget-and earned him a reputation for extravagance-but paid off handsomely at the box office and won an Academy Award for art direction."