Travels with My Aunt

• OSCAR WINNER:
• Best Costume Design

”They’re killing him bit by bit!” Flamboyant, flame-haired 70-plus Augusta Bertram has opened a package containing a finger that recently belonged to her years-ago lover.

The victim’s kidnappers continue mailing expendable body parts, and Augusta enlists the aid of her stuffy nephew in a mad to-the-rescue adventure across Europe in pursuit of $100,000 in ransom money. The scramble to save a life just might also liberate the nephew’s life-starved soul.

Based on one of Graham Greene’s drollest novels, directed with élan by George Cukor, and starring the magnificent Maggie Smith as Augusta and nimble Alec McCowen as bewildered nephew Henry, the joyously cockeyed "Travels With My Aunt" won a Best Costume Design Academy Award (out of four nominations) and a valise full of critical praise.