Leave All Fair


Leave All Fair is a 1985 New Zealand made film starring John Gielgud as John Middleton Murry the husband of Katherine Mansfield.
He is presented as a sanctimonious exploiter of her memory, who ill-treated her during their association. Jane Birkin plays both Mansfield in flashbacks and the fictitious Marie Taylor who finds a letter from the dying Mansfield to Murry in his papers.
The theme was developed by New Zealand director Stanley Harper, but he was fired two weeks before shooting, and John Reid took over the project, introducing the "ghost" element and the two time frames. Shot in France at Moulin d'Ande and St Pierre du Vauvray with finance raised by Pacific Films, the film had to be finished before the 1984 cut-off date for New Zealand tax breaks.

Plot

The film is set in France in 1956, 33 years after the death of Mansfield and a year before Murry's own death.
Murry visits André de Sarry a French publisher who is about to publish an edition of her collected letters and journals. Murry is presented as struggling with his conscience as he recalls the ill and alone Mansfield, and decides to publish almost all of her work.
de Sarry's New Zealand partner Marie Taylor reads Mansfield's work and among Middleton Murry's papers finds a letter to him from the dying Mansfield. She confronts him as "another exploitative male" who makes a sanctimonious speech at the book launch. The letter from Mansfield says :

Cast

Helen Martin says the film is "beautifully shot in the European tradition" and it was described at the London Film Festival as "arguably the best film to come out of New Zealand so far", but others criticised the portrayal of Middleton Murry as "simplifying the KM/Murry relationship into a cliché".
Variety said it was "an affecting experience".