With help from Truman Capote’s on-the-set rewrites, John Huston made a ‘Shaggy Dog’ story out of what presumably started as a ‘straight’ international caper pic. (Note clueless poster.) It’s less parody than slightly mad variant; tremendously entertaining, with the sort of laughs that bubble up days after watching. In a small Italian coastal town, Humphrey Bogart and wife Gina Lollobrigida meet up with a quartet of scoundrelly con men, all on their way to hoodwink a Central African country out of uranium deposits & rights. Or some such thing, the film isn’t too particular about what exactly is going on. But since the quartet includes Robert Morley & Peter Lorre, you have a pretty good idea of where you stand on the integrity front. Accompanying them on this fortune hunt, though unsure why or what it’s all about, are married twits . . . I mean, married Brits Edward Underdown and Jennifer Jones, his on-the-prowl/fantasist wife (commoners, but very La-Di-Da). Sporting a blonde wig & an unplaceable English accent, Jones seems unaware she’s in a comedy, which makes her all the funnier. Everyone else expert players, having a grand time and, for a change, passing on the feel-good vibrations though it took audiences decades to catch on.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The film’s fallen into Public Domain and dreary copies abound. But Film Detective has sourced a pretty good print for their 2014 DVD/Blu-Ray release which nearly does justice to the cinematography of Oswald Morris & camera operator Freddie Francis. (Note that on Film Detective the Academy Ratio (4:3) picture is mastered to show properly on an anamorphic (16:9) setting.)
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