Une ravissante idiote
1964 Comedy / Thriller
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Credits
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Summary
When Harry Compton loses his job with a bank in London, he decides to follow the career
of his father and become a Russian spy. He is engaged to steal some top secret documents
from the safe of Sir Reginald Dunfrey. What he doesn’t know is that the documents
are fake, a ruse by the British Secret Services to unmask the head of a spy ring.
In his mission, Harry is assisted by Penelope Lightfeather, a ravishing blonde who seems
to have the brain of a kitten…
Review
Edouard Molinaro began his career as a film director with a number of conventional crime-thrillers
before gravitating towards the kind of film for which is now better known – mainstream
comedy. Une ravissante idiote is one of
his earliest comic films, an ebullient parody spy thriller, a genre that was popular in
France at the time thanks to director Georges Lautner (
Les Tontons flinguers). The film brings
together two icons of the 1960s, Brigitte Bardot and Anthony Perkins – both of whom appear
to be wasted in this lowbrow farce. Whilst there is some great comedy in the
film, there is a sense that Molinaro is trying just a bit too hard for the laughs and
the film becomes very silly at times. Whilst Perkins struggles to show he can do
comedy, Bardot seems happy to cultivate her dumb blonde image – it’s all light-hearted
fun but it still feels like the thespian equivalent of prostitution.
© James Travers 2006 Write a review for this film... |
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