Never Outfox The Fox
After The Fox finds Peter Sellers and his then bride Britt Eklund working in Italy for director Vittorio DeSica. In it Sellers plays a criminal who if he's not quite a master at the crime trade, at least he's not a bumbler like Inspector Clousseau. The laughs Sellers gets in After The Fox come at the expense of others.A robbery of gold bullion has occurred in Egypt and Interpol is on the case. As we learned in The Lavender Hill Mob, gold bullion is not that easy to transport. Taking on the job of getting it into Europe after he's broken out of jail once again is Peter Sellers.
How to do it? Right out in the open during the course of shooting a movie about a heist. Sellers pretends to be a director and gets the a whole coastal village in on his scheme. After all, who doesn't want to be in the movies?
Part of Sellers plan is to convince over the hill American movie actor Victor Mature to star in his film. After The Fox was Mature's first film in five years, at this point in his life he worked when he felt like it. Mature was one of the least vain of all film stars, how many will say that he's no actor and have 63 pictures to prove it. He looked like he was having a ball satirizing himself and several of his colleagues still pretending they're leading men.
Britt Eklund is Seller's girl friend and Akim Tamiroff is the guy who pulled off the gold heist. Maria Gracia Buccella has an unforgettable part as Tamiroff's sister and 'the bikini trap'. This woman in a bikini makes Sophia Loren look flat-chested. Martin Balsam also has a good role as Mature's exasperated agent.
To see what happens if the budding film director can really smuggle some gold into Italy you have to see After The Fox. It's one of Peter Sellers best films and you've got to love Victor Mature for what he does with his own image here.
score 9/10
bkoganbing 8 April 2009
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2049577/35641
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