After being only mildly amused by it, I was surprised to see that all (three) of the epinions on "After the Fox" (1966) gave it five stars, with one proclaiming it the funniest movie ever. While I was watching it, I found it rather slow and pretty stupid, though there were some good aspects and a few laughs. Many of Peter Sellers's antics (here and elsewhere) make me roll my eyes instead of laugh. He often seemed to be trying far too hard to be funny, though he often was very funny (The Ladykillers, I'm Alright, Jack; Lolita, Dr. Strangelove). I like Sellers doing satire more than Sellers doing physical comedy. And he was enjoyable enjoying taking on disguises, accents, and multiple roles.

Just as Sellers's Inspector Clouseau relied heavily on stereotypical Frenchness, his Aldo Vanucci relied heavily on stereotypical Italianness. Is that Neil Simon's weak script was directed by one of the greatest Italian directors (Vittorio De Sica) supposed to make that stereotypy alright? Not just police and prison officials, but the general populace are portrayed as being extremey credulous and stupid. In particular, they are dazzled by movies, both the visit of a faded movie star (Victor Mature playing a parody of himself named Tony Powell) and being extras in a movie (any movie). It is in the movie mania that this movie eventually seems to be driving at making a point. My guess is that this is the (Cesare) Zavattini/De Sica part. (And the part that prefigures Giuseppe Tornatore's poignant 1995 movie about remote villagers craving to get into movies, "The Star Maker.")

Before getting to the village being bamboozled by a fake movie being made by the escaped criminal Sellres plays, there is the Peter Sellers/Neil Simon farce part, a part with far fewer gags than one expects from Simon, though plenty of impersonations and sight gags from Sellers. After lengthy opening cartoon credits with Peter Sellers and the Hollies singing the title song (a melody that did not supplant Henry Mancinni's "Pink Panther Theme" in popular memory) and showing the heist of a truckload of gold bars in Egypt, the movie turns to Italy, were the arch criminal Aldo Vanucci (Sellers) is visited in prison by three goons (more gooney than thuggish) who tell him that his sister has grown up and does not return directly home from school. Outraged at this, he decides to escape and better guard the family honor (Mediterranean family honor being bound up in keeping womenfolk in seclusion).

Through a series of costumes and impersonations, Aldo finds his sister who is ardently trying to get into the movies and also wants to catch a glimpse of Tony Powell (Mature). Vanucci hatches a plan to get the stolen gold into Europe by pretending to make a movie involving the landing of a gold shipment. He steals the lights and cameras from Vittorio De Sica and turns up in a coastal village.

Having flattered Tony Powell into a starring role despite the lack of a script or any screen credits, Vanucci, now calling himself Federico Fabrizi (obviously a play on Federico Fellini), has a town eager to be a film set and even has the policeman guarding the offloading of the stolen gold.

Then there is a boring chase, followed by a trial of the whole town. The main evidence is the film stock that was shot (by the goons, who were only pretending to be making a movie). The townspeople and Tony Powell cringe at how stupid and inept they look. So do the Vanuccis and the goons. The film within a film is like a string of bloopers, but it's hard to laugh at them, because the people watching themselves look ridiculous on film look so pained by seeing themselves in unflattering pictures. The viewer of "After the Fox" can't laugh with them, because they are not laughing, and their gullibility becomes painful to watch when they recognize it. This is a failure in comedy making. The townspeople do not struggle toward a realization (as Jim Carrey does in "The Truman Show"), but are poleaxed by reality, that is, they are suddenly hit and stunned.

After the in-court screening, a delirious critic proclaims the film a masterpiece of neorealism. This send-up of critics is funny, but the general chagrin really does recall the neorealist masterpieces of De Sica, the agony and humiliations of De Sica's neorealist masterpieces, "The Bicycle Thief," Shoeshine, and Umberto D."It is stunning, not least the deflation of the preening Tony Powell. But this does not fit with the silliness and farce of the rest of the movie. The tragedies in the early De Sica movies build up, and his middle-period comedies with Sophia Loren (such as Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow have points and tragicomic elements but not a sudden transformation of genre near the end. (The trial ends with Vanucci taking responsibility for duping everyone else and the movie ends with a variant of the opening prison-break, which is to say, back in silliness.)

I think that De Sica was striving for a commercial hit in English More than a decade earlier, his movie starring Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift was hacked up by David O. Selznick and American censors, and given the awkward title "Indiscretions of an American Wife"; De Sica directed Sellers again the next year after "After the Fox" in "Woman Times Seven," a Shirley Maclaine vehicle that is another awkward muddle of comedy and unfunny pain).

Sellers did his thing, and Victor Mature showed a sense of humor about himself and some unexpected acting ability.. and Sellers's then-wife Britt Ekland managed to pass as Italian, though her part is mostly a ventroloquist dummy for the criminal played by Akim Tamiroff.

I wrote a three-star review of this early in 2004, but the last third of the movie has remained strong in my memory. In recognition of its power, I am reposting a revised epinion with a higher rating.

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I have also reviewed two later De Sica films:
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)
My Brief Vacation(1973)


©2004, 2006 Stephen O. Murray


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older