This is a pretty odd movie that mixes drama with adventurous elements and yet somehow works.
The movie is definitely entertaining to watch, with a good cast, some fine comedy moments and a good solid adventurous story. Nothing too big or fancy, just a decent enjoyable movie quality movie to kill some time with.
The movie has a perfectly adventurous way of storytelling, meaning that lots of places around the world are being visited in short amount of time and many different characters come and go.
The movie obviously had some great production values, since the movie is set all around the globe, from Paris to Istanbul and everything around it and between. The movie is also looking with some lively, deliberately over-the-top looking sets and costumes (both nominated for an Oscar with the costumes even eventually winning.). But what else was to expect from a George Cukor movie. The man who is known for director cheerful and good musical mostly in the '50's and '60's including "My Fair Lady" but also comedies, like "Born Yesterday" and well known serious drama classics as well, such as "Gaslight", "The Philadelphia Story" and for some part, before he was booted from the set, also "Gone with the Wind".
He mixed all those previous styles he had worked with before in this movie. The end result is a quite unique and one of a kind movie, that works fine on the adventurous level, as well as the comical and dramatic one.
The movie is well cast with Maggie Smith in an absolutely splendid role. A role that even got her an Oscar nomination. She also had some great chemistry with Alec McCowen, who is obviously the least known actor of the main cast. His role even got him a Golden Globe nomination. Abolutely great and humorously entertaining was Louis Gossett Jr. in his role. He not only shows that he is a great actor but also how well he can handle the comedy genre. His character provides the movie with the most and biggest laughs. Too bad that his career has derailed so badly the last couple of decades, ever since his Oscar winning role for "An Officer and a Gentleman", from 1982.
But no, when you look at this movie you'll realize that it also is far from a perfect one. The story gets a bit too odd at times and the storytelling is just off. The movie also too quickly ends some potentially interesting or amusing plot lines and the different adventurous/comedy and drama elements don't always go together well.
Nevertheless it was a movie I mostly enjoyed watching and I wouldn't mind viewing it again.
A good entertaining movie, that definitely deserves to be seen.
7/10
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