The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (film)

Plot[edit]

Henry Sugar is the pseudonym of a bachelor who uses his inherited fortune to fund his gambling habits. One day, he comes across a book of a doctor's report of Imdad Khan, a man who claimed he could see and interact without using his eyes. After watching Imdad perform even greater feats in his own circus act, the doctor interviewed Imdad, and he tells him his life history. As a young runaway in a traveling circus, he sought out a guru known as The Great Yogi, who could meditate while levitating his own body. Reluctantly, the Great Yogi taught Imdad his meditation method, which granted Imdad his abilities, though he died overnight before the doctors could further study him.


By practising Imdad's meditations of staring into a candle flame at eye level while picturing the face of the person he loves most in the world, Henry manages to see through the backs of playing cards to read the face value after three years of practice, something that Imdad had been told that only one in a billion would be able to do in a short amount of time. Henry uses his ability at a casino and makes £30,000 at blackjack. Unsatisfied with his ease in earning money, he throws the money off his balcony into the streets of London. After he nearly causes a riot, a police officer suggests that he find a more effective form of charity. Henry decides to travel worldwide, winning money from casinos with his ability under varying disguises and establishing a network of successful hospitals and orphanages. Two decades later, Henry dies from a pulmonary embolism which he knew would cause his death, being able to see the clot through his skin. His accountant commissions Roald Dahl to write his story under the condition his identity remains confidential.