Peter Finch portrays the titular flamboyant Irish poet/playwright in . The storyline, lifted to a great extent from actual court records, recounts Wilde's late 19th century libel action against the Marquis of Queensbury. The author loses, whereupon he himself is tried for sodomy due to his homosexual affair with the Marquis' son, Lord Douglas. Wilde is sentenced to prison; the public humiliation leads to the once-proud writer's immortal poem --and to his premature death in 1900. The film had to tiptoe around certain touchy legalities, in that sodomy was still a punishable offence in British courts in 1960. The US title for this film was , effectively killing the ironic double meaning of the plural British title. In certain regions, the film was shown as .