Il marito latino

Rossano Brazzi plays the most arrogant man in the world in Count Your Blessings. He meets Deborah Kerr, and even though she's engaged to a fellow soldier, he actively tries to wear her down and seduce her even when she repeatedly refuses his advances. His excuse? It's wartime, and the other man "left his side unguarded." Removing the ridiculous casting decision to pick an Italian actor as a Frenchman, assuming that American audiences couldn't tell the difference between Rossano's accent and Maurice Chevalier's-who plays his father-accent, the movie is still ridiculous.

It's made extremely obvious from the get-go that the only connection Rossano and Deborah have is in the bedroom, but they get married anyway. They bicker constantly, disagree on major life issues, and suffer from culture shock at each other's attitudes. And to top it all off, before they have the chance to enjoy a honeymoon, Rossano is captured and Deborah is left pregnant and alone. She waits for years-yes, that's right, years-for him to return, and raises a son alone. She's wasted her youth and pines away for a man she only knew for a few days, and when he finally returns, they're faced with the same old problems. He's an unfaithful jerk, there's a culture clash, they don't really like each other, he's not sympathetic towards his son-but the moment they're left alone in the bedroom, all is right with the world. How are we supposed to root for this romance?

Even the title sends the wrong message to the audience! When absolutely everything is wrong with in a relationship, you should "count your blessings" and only focus on the one physical aspect that keeps you together? Well, if you subscribe to that theory, you might actually like this movie. As it is, I'm past my teens, so I have the life experience to know that the main message of the movie is wrong. I hated this movie. If there was even one more connection between the two leads, I'd have given it more leniency, but they were so incredibly ill-suited for one another! I'll leave you with one of Rossano's lines, so you can fully understand his awful character: "You must always smile at women. If they're pretty, it gives you pleasure. If they're not pretty, it gives them pleasure, and you have the satisfaction of having done a good deed."

I give this a 6/10 because it is not boring and because I am an easy grader. I was so confounded by the script I could not be bored.

First off, why is Rossano Brazzi playing a Frenchman? But that is the least of this film's problems. At first I thought I was watching a movie about a war ravaged romance (Kerr as an English woman and Brazzi as a French officer during WWII). Then I thought I was watching a movie about a British woman forced to deal with the stresses of surviving a war alone while raising her young fatherless son. After that I thought I was watching a movie about a reunited culturally blended family attempting to make a go of it after nine years of estrangement. I couldn't be more wrong.

This turned out to be a movie about hypocritical counseling from one French philanderer about another. As the "wise" uncle-counselor, Maurice Chevalier rationalizes to the despondent and confused Miss Kerr about her husband, his nephew; "you married a Frenchman. You cannot make him into an Englishman or an American . . . If you want to be happy you have to think like a Frenchwoman". With that Deborah Kerr responds with the only logical response in the movie; "we'll it seems as if I'm expected to do all the changing. It's a bit one sided don't you think? And why can't marriage change both husband and wife? . . ." And the scene that sums it all up; as his son watches on, Rossano Brazzi unapologetically ogles Parisian beauties for his offspring to observe.

What is Brazzi doing? At first it seems like he may be maintaining multiple households with multiple wives. But then in one scene with one of them he is just having them take dictation. Is he a bigamist? Is he part of some secret business deal he cannot let his wife in on? Nope, he is just a philanderer on a grand scale. Also it seems like Brazzi and Kerr's characters only have anything in common in the bedroom. They bicker the rest of the time. And the son? Is Kerr sure the dad is not an American? Because the son turns out to be a capitalist extraordinaire. He tries to keep them apart when they separate so that they do not reconcile since he can get much more stuff when they are in a bidding war for his affections.

Recommended for the weirdness of it all. I blame "Around the World in 80 Days". After that film won the Best Picture Oscar in 1956 in spite of just being one long travelogue, lots of films emerged whose producers and directors seemed to think that they could just shoot on location in Europe and put up any kind of drivel as a plot and succeed. This seems to be one of those films.

Nancy Mitford's novel "The Blessing" becomes somewhat uneasy romantic vehicle for Deborah Kerr and Rossano Brazzi, neither of whom are especially adept at light comedy. During the London blitz, an English girl (already somewhat engaged) shares a whirlwind courtship with a brash, handsome (and fabulously rich) French Captain, whom she promptly marries; after a three-day honeymoon, he receives his 'orders' and leaves for duty, disappearing from her life for nine years. Upon the Captain's return, the couple's reunion is strained by the child she had in his absence, an impertinent lad who hopes to keep the squabbling lovebirds apart. In the key role of the son (nicknamed Siggy!), little Martin Stephens is too intense for this featherweight scenario (although this same intensity would serve him well in 1961's "The Innocents", wherein he also co-starred alongside Deborah Kerr). As for the grown-ups, Kerr and Brazzi seem typecast in their roles: she as a prudish standard bearer, he as a Euro cad. Kerr's early fidgeting (and her eventual anger over being forgotten) are well-wrought; however, the chemistry she shares with Maurice Chevalier as Brazzi's uncle is far stronger than Kerr's connection to her leading man! The production is certainly attractive, and there are some interesting exchanges of dialogue questioning why women hope to change the men they marry (and, if wives are willing to make changes to suit their husbands, why can't the husbands do the same?). Not a smooth mix of moods, and with stagy action from lead-footed director Jean Negulesco, but far from terrible. **1/2 from ****

Sometimes you watch films for others, and this was one of them. I thought it might lighten darker days, but it had the effect of making me very depressed. Not about its content but about why it was made at all. Deborah Kerr in her most true blue way was terrible to watch, filled with empty mannerisms and surrounded by greed and wealth. She could be a good actress and a mediocre one, and this performance was truly bad. She marries a very rich Frenchman played by Rossano Brazzi ( the Italian accent made this nonsense ) and they have a young son who should never have been let out of the playpen!!! He complicates their lives and plays with a small Guillotine ( don't even think about it ) and the one good actor, Patricia Medina is given a rotten role of no consequence. There is also Maurice Chevalier being as always himself, and seemingly incapable of doing anything else as Brazzi's father. Accents clash again, even topping Kerr's excruciating high-pitched and immitating badly the Queen of England's voice. Negulesco directed some stinkers at the end of his career and this is one of them. Snobbish and unendurable this film grinds to a halt in one of the most absurd scenes I have ever seen in what is sometimes laughingly called the cinema. I recommed it to all those who kick expensive furniture ( as Kerr does ) and who say, " I am not French!! I am English, English, English ", and let them endure this travesty of cinematic self-indulgence.

Grace Allingham (Deborah Kerr) is an English woman struggling on the home front during WWII. French officer Charles Edouard de Valhubert (Rossano Brazzi) has a message for her from her boyfriend Hugh Palgrave. The message is nothing much and the French man is terribly rude and aggressive. It's a short romance and a quickie marriage after only 3 days.

Negging is a way of enticing gorgeous females by praising them with little put-downs. Apparently, it works on some women. It definitely does not work for romantic movies especially rom-coms. I simply don't understand the theory of it as movie writing. It's a horrible meet-cute. There is nothing funny about it although again, it may work on some people. The female in question should be uppity and bringing her down could be funny. That's not the case for Deborah Kerr. None of this is funny. Nor is it romantic. I don't get them as a movie pairing.