A Breath of Scandal

I like it a lot. It is funny. Has some funny scenes and some funny characters.

Now, I didn't say that it is a comedy that will make you laugh a lot, but you might watch almost all of it with a smile on your face, at least I know I did.

Sophia Loren looks great in it and from what my sister told me the guy looks very good also.

(Maybe guys could learn something from the man in this movie.)

I gave it a 10 because I think it is one of the best of it's kind. (By the way, if you know better ones please let me know. 10x)

PS: I think is a nice movie to watch with a girlfriend/boyfriend.

Sophia Loren--in a succession of lavish gowns, her hair tinted a honey-brown--looks every inch the princess in this surface-pretty remake of 1929's "His Glorious Night", adapted from Molnar's play "Olimpia". An American businessman from Pittsburg travels overseas and falls in love with mercurial royalty from Ruritania; she has breached protocol by even being seen with this "peasant", so in order to keep him quiet she agrees to spend a weekend with him in the country. Wily Maurice Chevalier, as Sophia's father, gets to sing a little and make eyes at the ladies, and his polished comic timing is a welcome relief to the empty, useless bantering of the young lovers. As Loren's gallant guy, stiff John Gavin talks as if he's being dubbed by a ventriloquist (he has no music in his voice). Sophia doesn't have the witty lines of the older players (nor that of Angela Lansbury as a competitive Countess), though she gives more to this puff-piece than most actresses would have. A few funny lines do lighten the load, yet it's largely forgettable. ** from ****

This bantam weight of a comedy really has not much going for it. It is so light you could knock it down with a feather. I was so bored I decided to do some crossword puzzles while listening to the dialog and missed absolutely. Princess/Royalty Sophia is expelled from the court. She wants to marry a well to do royal but an indiscretion with an American visitor, the always bland for extremely good looking John Gavin - well, he's not really bland: He just speaks in a monotone way and doesn't vary his technique much - threatens to derail the impending nuptials. Poor second-billed Maurice Chevalier in a role he would play many time again as the cantankerous old matchmaker after perfecting it in Gigi dawdles through the movie singing sweet melodies that move absolutely no one. Wide Screen cinematography and Technicolor is exquisite and the costumes worn by Sophia define her figure to goddess like status. But when in a romantic comedy you are rapturing over the sets and costumes you know something is wrong. P.S. Poor Michael Curtiz!

Sometimes, particularly when one is looking at a landscape or a portrait, beauty is sufficient. Movies are a different situation altogether and visual beauty is a bonus and certainly does no harm but it cannot carry a movie all by itself. John Gavin is beautiful but miscast and wooden where a more dangerous charm would have helped. Think Grant or even Sinatra but at least think alive. As to Loren, words fail me. The look (beautiful perhaps) is entirely wrong and she is no princess. If for no other reason her accent makes no sense and screams please oh please dub me, dub me, dub me even by the actress she called mother for no discernible reason. The eligible prince actually looks like Grace Kelly's real life prince but there is no Grace Kelly to lift his form into substance. The only performer who is even slightly acceptable is the divine and immortal Angela Lansbury who actually seems to be engaged. Fortunately, she doesn't have to listen to old Maurice beat a dead horse (i.e., his tired singing routine). Speaking of horses, the four-legged ones were cute but could only move the carriage, not the plot. On the whole, I'd rather be in Pittsburgh, with or without a horse or anywhere else, as long as it is with Ms. Lansbury.

As has been mentioned before, the sets, the scenery and the cast are beautiful, if mismatched. Sophia Loren is an actress I admire greatly, and one I think is underrated, having been cast in many roles for her looks, but this does her no favours. The story is lightweight, frothy and could have been fun, but the casting is wrong - as someone has mentioned before, she could hardly have been a child of her parents. The 'royals' are a conundrum - when is Hollywood going to learn that royalty don't behave like middle class hosts or hostesses - my shock at hearing Julie Andrews, as the queen in princess diaries say "I must go, I have a press conference, I can't keep them waiting" has never abated, the royals are above all that, and they certainly don't check tables or supplies when hosting a party. I think the casting was definitely a problem, a blend of so many nationalities in supposedly a European country, and while Princess Anne of Great Britain was a great horseman, I can't see it having been permitted when this film was supposedly based.(and the commentator was American?) That aside, the constant irritations of implausibilities and the bad, BAD scripts made this film mostly unwatchable. The American guy was OK (if forgettable), Sophia was OK, as were each of the cast individually,but what they had to deal with was desperate. It's a shame, this could have been highly enjoyable, as much fun as any lightweight film of that era. But someone was very lazy.