Sunday, July 08, 2012

Movie review - "After the Fox" (1966) **

Ah, the sixties - when you'd get caper films written by top Broadway playwrights, with faded Hollywood stars playing faded Hollywood stars, directed by Italians with great art house reputations in Italy, climactic chase scenes, lazy satire. This has a pretty good idea - crooks need super cook Peter Sellars to smuggle some gold into the country so he covers for it by making a movie. There's location footage, Britt Ekland as an Italian (Sellars' sister), a jaunty theme song penned by Burt Bacharach warbled by Sellars and the Hollies.

It's silly and fun enough - I wasn't wild about it. The pace never seems right, it takes too long to get going, and Sellars mugs ceaselessly. It feels weird Ekland and Sellars playing brother and sister when they should play lovers. Maybe the digs about Italian art house cinema were fresher in 1966. I did like the sexy woman who mimed the voice of her Italian cohort, and Victor Mature as a washed up Hollywood star.

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