After the Fox (1966)

Peter Sellers stars in a film by Vittorio de Sica. So no chance of a clash of egos there, then. Neil Simon's first film screenplay gets a lavish treatment and even if, as he admitted himself, the final result is patchy there are enough funny and genuinely inspired moments in it to make it a cult favourite.  And now it's getting a Blu-ray release in the UK courtesy of the BFI.

Aldo Vanucci (Peter Sellers) a sort of Italian Charley Croker, escapes from prison after learning he is the only criminal capable of importing into Italy gold stolen from Cairo by Okra (Akim Tamiroff, probably better known to readers of this site for his appearances in THE BLACK SLEEP and THE VULTURE. Sorry Akim). The ideal place to bring the gold in is a small seaside town, so Vanucci hits on the idea of pretending he and his gang are shooting a movie about stolen gold there, using the entire township (including the police) to help him with the heist.

Apparently director de Sica wanted an Italian star for his planned satirical epic about the Italian film industry, which tied in nicely with Neil Simon's plan to have some fun with the art house film industry that had created movies like Resnais' LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD. Having Sellars on board guaranteed a star's pulling power but also meant de Sica has to acquiesce to Sellars' demands, including having his then wife Britt Ekland cast as one of the leads. 

While Ekland's not ideal for her role, Victor Mature is absolutely splendid in his, sending up the ageing matinee idol persona before it was a thing, and Martin Balsam (who will probably end up being most famous for being pushed down the stairs by Mrs Bates) exhibits fine comic timing as his long-suffering agent. De Sica appears as himself in a spoof of filming De Laurentiis Biblical epic THE BIBLE with 'John Huston Moses'. 

The BFI's Blu-ray is 1080p and is not a restoration so there are still a couple of smudges and scratches on an otherwise clean and bright-looking print. Extras include a new 15 minute interview with Britt Ekland, Vic Pratt talking about Peter Sellers, a one minute Victorian short crime caper from 1897 (!), 72 minutes of Maurice Denham (who plays a small part in AFTER THE FOX) narrating two short films from the National Art Archive: The Last Rhino and Go As You Please...In Britain, and a 12 minute piece with De Sica visiting Berlin. The first pressing comes with a booklet with new writing on the film from Vic Pratt, Deborah Allison & Howard Hughes.

Vittorio De Sica's AFTER THE FOX is out on Blu-ray from the BFI on Monday 21st September 2020 

The Magic Christian (1969)

“Potty, Decadent, Sub-Bunuelian British Satire”

    Well what else might you expect from a late 1960s movie adaptation of a novel by Terry Southern, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr and boasting extra screenplay material from John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Spike Milligan?    

    The slight plot is as follows: extremely rich Sir Guy Grand (Sellers) adopts a hobo he sees in the park who becomes his son, Youngman (Starr). Together they embark on a project that’s ‘not easily defined’ according to Grand but seems to consist of giving people large amounts of money to do embarrassing / ridiculous things. These include Laurence Harvey performing a striptease during his Hamlet soliloquy, Spike Milligan’s traffic warden eating the parking ticket he has given Grand, and someone bringing a panther with a wig on to Crufts claiming it’s a rare breed of dog.

    The movie culminates with a trip on the luxury seafaring vessel The Magic Christian, captained by an increasingly drunk Wilfred Hyde-White and boasting such guests as Christopher Lee’s Dracula, Yul Brynner as a chanteuse and Roman Polanski as ‘drinker at bar’.

    It all goes bonkers at the end, with the craft seemingly powered by topless slavegirls rowing and presided over by Raquel Welch with a whip. A gorilla appears because anything else just wouldn’t be acceptable, and the final scene shows Sellars and Ringo back in the park where our story began.

    Less a narrative and more a series of daft sketches, how much you’ll like THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN will depend on your taste for Monty Python, Spike Milligan’s Q series, and absurdist experimental British cinema of the period (Richard Lester’s THE BED SITTING ROOM comes to mind).

    If you do like that kind of thing you’ll have a ball. there’s also a lot of fun to be had spotting familiar film and TV faces of the period, many of whom are of the blink you’ll miss them variety, so the film also rewards repeat viewings.

    Fabulous Films’ Blu-ray is the print releases stateside by Olive Films (for MAGIC CHRISTIAN obsessives who might be wondering). There are no extras. Apparently a documentary was made to promote the movie called ‘Will the Real Mr Sellers Please Stand Up’ with Spike Milligan narration but sadly it’s not included. 

THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN is out on Blu-ray from Fabulous Films on Monday 26th June 2017