Based on a script by radical Hungarian playwright and screenwriter George Tabori, Secret Ceremony is a mysterious film about vulgar characters caught up in an obscure ritual that they can only dimly understand, despite the fact that it controls their actions. All of the baroque tendencies in Losey's cinema find full expression in this lavish, star-studded production – Losey's second film with Elizabeth Taylor – cast this time as a high-end prostitute mourning the recent death of her daughter. The impressive cast also includes Mia Farrow as the waif who bears an uncanny resemblance to the dead girl and Robert Mitchum as her strangely demanding stepfather. The increasing complexity of staging and mise-enscène in Losey's European films is clearly marked in Secret Ceremony's moody and dramatic use of the Art Noveau mansion which, much like the houses in The Servant and The Go-Between, acts as a character in the film.