Former Doctor Who Star Tom Baker In Newly Discovered Film
By Sundi Rose
Watch the former Time Lord Tom Baker in a recently uncovered film, The Author of Beltraffio, that’s been tucked away since 1976.
Fans of the older Doctor Who seasons will be delighted to see Tom Baker in his long-hidden film, The Author of Beltraffio. The film first aired in 1974 and starred Baker alongside Georgia Hale. It’s on of the five adaptations of Henry James stories made for French TV almost 40 years ago.
In the film, Baker portrays a renowned author whose wife is targeted by and American fan. The American finds himself on the wrong side of the hostile wife, and secrets soon come to light, mostly centering on the couple’s sickly child.
You can watch an exclusive clip here at RadioTimes.
You can watch the film in it’s restored entirety at the BFI & Radio Times Television Festival on Saturday 8th April. For tickets to the festival, visit the BFI website.
British fans haven’t been able to see the film since it’s last airing in 1976, and it’s unclear when fans will get to see the film outside of the BFI Festival.
But despair not. You can purchase the original Henry James story from Amazon for under $10. Here’s a quick synopsis (and total spoiler) of the book:
"The narrator of the story, a somewhat naive American admirer of English novelist Mark Ambient, visits the writer at his home in Surrey. He meets Ambient’s beautiful but chilly wife, his sickly seven-year-old son Dolcino, and his strange sister Gwendolyn. He also learns that Ambient’s wife strongly dislikes her husband’s novels and considers them corrupt and pagan. Dolcino eventually becomes much more ill and dies. The mother, grief-stricken over her role in Dolcino’s final illness, dies herself after a few months. In a grimly ironic note to conclude the story, the narrator says Ambient later revealed that his wife had become partially reconciled to his novels and even read Beltraffio in the weeks before her death."
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If you can’t make it to the film fest, you can still check out some of Tom Baker’s other works. Look for him in Star Wars Rebels as the voice The Bendu, or in the 2013 episode of Doctor Who “Day of the Doctor.”