Peter O’Toole is a playboy who can’t stop chasing after women in Paris. Peter Sellers is a lecherous therapist with his own problems. Woody Allen is in love with O’Toole’s fiance. It’s all over the place, both in terms of storytelling (a potentially interesting love triangle idea is quickly forgotten) and morals, which seem informed by a curious mixture of Carry On-style English repression and clichés about “European” looseness. In the world of this film, men are portrayed as womanising beasts and women exist only to please them.
The only laughs come from Woody Allen, who is naturally funny in his scenes – although he does have to take the blame for writing such a poor script overall. Peter Sellers is once again wearing a silly wig and doing a silly accent, but neither of those generate any hilarity. The final section – Ursula Andress literally parachutes into the film and everyone runs around after each other in a country hotel – seems muddled and desperate, as any notion of “plot” is completely abandoned for cheap visual gags that fall flat.
I don’t like the theme song sung by Tom Jones, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment