Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1979)

Merchant Ivory Productions collaborated with London Weekend Television in 1978 to create the film HULLABALOO OVER GEORGIE AND BONNIE'S PICTURES. In India, a young maharaja, Georgie (Victor Banerjee), and his sister, Bonnie (Aparna Sen), possess a collection of Indian miniature paintings rotting away in a storeroom of their palace. Dame Peggy Ashcroft stars as Lady Gee, a manipulative London art dealer who journeys to India in search of their set of priceless art. Competing with Lady Gee is another art collector, Clark Haven (Larry Pine). The two collectors try through manipulation, flirtation, and trickery to scam the artwork out of the maharaja's hands while the collection's curator (Saeed Jaffrey) works both sides against each other. BBC producer Melvyn Bragg approached Merchant Ivory Productions with the offer of making a film for London Weekend Television's THE SOUTH BANK SHOW, and, after its success on broadcast television, the movie was released as a feature film. The premise behind HULLABALOO was inspired by director James Ivory's 1959 documentary, THE SWORD AND THE FLUTE (narrated by Jaffrey), which detailed the history and technique of Indian miniature painting.