FAMILY FORTUNES

An immensely wealthy jewelry magnate gives his property away to his three daughters, precipitating titanic power-plays and dynastic dashes as the ungrateful ladies start squabbling over control of the family business. King Lear meets Robin Leach. Jack Edgeworth--an Englishman who has turned the family jewelry business into an international conglomerate of swell stores and terrific real estate--summons his three daughters to his fabulous Florida estate and tells them that he has decided to give them the bulk of his estate right then and there. To that end he has drawn up irrevocable documents divesting himself of everything, keeping just enough for a rich and famous lifestyle. Oh, and enough shares in the business to stay on the board. But they get everything else. The bad daughters, Adeline and Nora, are pleased as punch, but Nell, the youngest and the only daughter with a social conscience, turns Daddy down. Surprise! As soon as the deeds are in hand, the bad daughters drop daddy like a bad habit and start plotting to get control of each other's shares. Both of them wind up seeking the help of the French branch of the family, entangling themselves with their evil cousin Edmond d'Aloncon, a heartless cad who plans to play them off against each other until it is he who controls the works. But Daddy, who is down but not out, decides to fight back. Endless name-dropping, lots of fashions, jewelry galore, but, for all that, the lifestyles are deadly dull.