Mon 30 Jun 2014
A Movie Review by David Vineyard: A FINE PAIR (1968).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[5] Comments
A FINE PAIR. National General Pictures, 1969. First released in Italy as Ruba al prossimo tuo (1968). Rock Hudson, Claudia Cardinale, Leon Askin, Ellen Corby. Tony Lo Bianco. Score by Ennio Morricone. Directed by Francesco Masselli.
Esmerelda: I can see they aren’t getting anything done from here.
Sadly that is the best line in this rather strained caper comedy that never quite lives up to the jaunty Ennio Morricone score.
Rock Hudson is dour police Captain Mike Harmon, a pain in everyone’s ass, who was close to Esmerelda’s policeman father with young Esmerelda having a schoolgirl crush on him that has carried over to the present day.
It’s not a match made in heaven though, Esmerelda is a rebel and jewel thief.
She wants Hudson to help her return the jewels she stole in Austria from a wealthy American’s villa and he reluctantly agrees (all too easily).
Of course she is breezy, fun, amoral, smart, sexy, and only half clothed most of the time so it is natural the stiff cold Captain is going to melt — almost literally when he has to get the villa they are robbing to 194 degrees to disable the alarm and she holds the place up in nothing but wet bra and panties.
Nor does he suspect he returned paste jewels while she stole the real ones — again.
By the time he finds out she has to return more jewels in Rome, he is hooked on her and crime, and they have a big row when she decides to turn hones,t so Mike pulls off the heist and frames her having her own uncle arrest her so she can’t leave.
After a narrow squeak the two end up happily together.
And it just ends.
One thing, with Rock in black framed glasses you now know how he would look as Clark Kent or Rip Kirby.
This light film would like to be something along the lines of A Man and A Woman, with an infectious score, flashy photography, and a naturalistic look. The problem is Francesco Masselli is a heavy-handed and unimaginative director, Hudson doesn’t seem comfortable with his character for the first half of the film, and while Cardinale is gorgeous and fun, she makes no sense as a character.
Had they done this a few years earlier as one of those slick Universal films Hudson was so ubiquitous in from the late fifties through the mid-sixties, it might have been the light playful romantic comedy caper it was meant to be, but this is just a bore.
Cardinale is beautiful, funny, sexy, and screwball, the scenery is lovely, and the two actors have some chemistry once Hudson is able to move into a more familiar mode, but it’s a highly unsatisfying film otherwise.
I missed it the on its initial release and it has taken until now to see it. I wish now I had waited another couple of decades.
Not bad so much as ho, hum.
June 30th, 2014 at 2:54 pm
At this point Hudson’s film career was almost over. ICE STATION ZEBRA and THE UNDEFEATED with John Wayne the next year, but other than that it was foreign movies and a few ho-hum misfires. Luckily MacMILLAN AND WIFE came along in 1971 and lasted until 1977. Thereafter television kept him busy until his sad death. When the old Hollywood machine began to flounder at the end of the 60s a lot of the stars jumped ship to television. James Stewart made a good attempt, but was really too old to take the punishing schedule. John Wayne was advised to try, but hated the idea of walking away from his film stardom. Hudson was really ideal for the move, as although he had been a star since the 50s, he was only in his mid-40s, and thus able to manage the move to TV.
June 30th, 2014 at 5:10 pm
I recorded this from TCM last week, but I haven’t gotten around to watching it yet, but I will. Should I add “anyway”?
Here’s a paragraph from the TCM notes on the film
“Hudson tried gamely, throwing himself into madcap chase scenes and comic interludes set in European discos. He even shared some torrid bedroom scenes with Cardinale and a scene in which his character considers smoking marijuana, a far cry from his leading roles in romantic comedies with the likes of Doris Day and Leslie Caron. At 43, he still had all of the boyish charm that had made him a star. And he still had the comic skills to match Cardinale’s insouciant performance as a sophisticated jewel thief. Yet he was so polished and secure in his technique that at times he seems out of place in a film shot in a more European style influenced by France’s . After films like Breathless (1960) and Jules and Jim (1962), audiences expected the jump cuts and jittery hand-held camera sequences to focus on gritty, quirky actors who performed as if improvising, not a slick Hollywood movie star.”
For more, go here:
June 30th, 2014 at 5:28 pm
I liked McMillan and Wife for what it was, and Hudson was well suited to television since as you said, he was a big name, but not in the Stewart/Wayne category.
This should have been an ideal film for him along the lines of Blindfold, but instead it is arty, silly, and badly written and directed. Even with that he and Cardinale have spark, but there is nothing to light.
He seems really lost in the first part of the film, sullen, mean spirited, and even cruel, and for no reason the film discloses, then a few days with Cardinale, getting laid, and pulling off a caper and he is the old Rock Hudson. He was usually good in drama (The Tarnished Angels, Written on the wind, Giant), but it’s almost as if he didn’t understand the script, the way the film was being made, or his character.
And you can’t blame him. The script makes no sense, has no real story flow, and makes sudden near schizophrenic breaks beside which bi-polar looks tame.
Made by Universal only a few years earlier, and with the same cast but a decent script and director, this would have been at least entertaining. This way even the attractive locations are dull. I didn’t know a Swiss ski resort could look that ugly, or Rome that dull. New York fares a little better, but very little of the film is set there.
And if you can figure out the purpose of Ellen Corby and Tony Lo Bianco in the film drop me a note. All they seem to demonstrate is Hudson’s Captain Harmon is a huge jerk.
July 1st, 2014 at 6:39 am
I haven’t seen this since the original release in 1968 but David’s review captures the way I felt then – it was pretty awful.
The one scene that stands out in my memory (and recent viewers can tell me if I’m remembering it correctly) has Cardinale writhing around in lingerie and Hudson cooling her off by spraying her with a seltzer bottle.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. Yes, she had a fine pair but the movie, basically, sucked.
September 25th, 2019 at 8:43 pm
A terrible movie. How Rock and Claudia got mixed up in this incomprehensible junk is a mystery. Italian films of that time had excellent cinematography. Not this film. Rock does look like Clark/Superman.