Monday, December 29, 2008

The Statue

Rodney Amateau | 1971 | 84 mins | UK / USA

David Niven plays Alex Bolt, a stuffy British linguist who's just been awarded a Nobel prize for his work on an Esperanto-esque universal language called "Unispeak". Virna Lisi is his hot Italian wife, Rhonda, an internationally renowned sculptress who's been commissioned by an ambitious U.S. diplomat (Robert Vaughn) to create a statue for a London square which will honour her husband's achievement.

Rhonda, upset that she's only seen her busy husband "eighteen days in the last three years", decides to sculpt an 18-foot nude, giving it Bolt's face but someone else's you-know-what.

Believing that she's been unfaithful, Bolt goes on a jealous rampage across Europe to find the man who modeled for the statue. Cue an hour or so of wacky sex comedy involving a stiff-upper-lipped David Niven trying to see a variety of mens' peckers by trolling bathhouses, sending sexy dames to seduce temperamental painters and sneaking around in a generally unseemly manner.

Of course, we never get to see the contentious member (though we do get to see a pair of boobs or two), because the prudish film is like a barely modernized update of a century-old sex farce. When it comes time for the grand reveal, you pretty much know what's coming, but it's so silly anyway that it doesn't really matter.

Worth it for the very young John Cleese in a small part as Niven's friend - a psychiatrist who hates psychiatry and wants to be an advertiser.

1 comment:

Colin said...

By the director of THE SON OF HITLER starring Bud Cort and Peter Cushing!!! Just got a copy of that one! Heil Cort!