“A BEAUTIFUL MESS”

By Raymond Benson

Filmmaker Stanley Donen had substantial success with his comedy-thriller, Charade (1963), which starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. It was hyped and critiqued as “Hitchcockian” in tone and style, especially the light-hearted and glitzy To Catch a Thief (1955). (There are many who mistakenly believe that Charade is a Hitchcock film.)

The studio then wanted to repeat that success with a similar picture, Arabesque, also with Cary Grant in the lead role with Donen directing again. However, Grant felt that the script was “terrible” and passed. Donen allegedly wasn’t too thrilled with the script, either, and he wasn’t too keen on making the picture without Grant.

Then Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren expressed interest in the movie, so Donen acquiesced. Sounds like a fairy tale scenario for the greenlighting of a Hollywood movie, right? The two Oscar-winning stars were cast, and the script was rewritten… and rewritten… (it is credited to Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price, and Pierre Marton; however, Marton is a pseudonym for Peter Stone, who had written Charade!).

Released in 1966, Arabesque has all the hallmarks of a hit movie. It is beautifully photographed by Christopher Challis, with colorful usage of mirrors and prisms and glass throughout the picture. These visuals provide the film with its spectacular glossy eye candy. Ms. Loren’s costumes (by Christian Dior) are psychedelic/exotic/1960s fabulous. Henry Mancini’s musical score is fun and lively—except for the examples cited below. Maurice Binder’s main titles design hints at something leaning toward a James Bond or Derek Flint film.

These are the only admirable aspects of the picture.

Both Charade and Arabesque, when one examines them closely, are really screwball comedies set in a spy/thriller milieu. The success of a screwball comedy depends on the comic timing and charisma of the two “mismatched” leads—this is the core ingredient of the sub-genre. Cary Grant can do these kinds of roles in his sleep. And this is where the problem lies.

Gregory Peck is a wonderful actor, but unfortunately here he is terribly miscast. It’s obvious that he’s trying to “do” Cary Grant (without the accent), and it simply does not work. The dialogue—meant to be witty banter in the Cary Grant mold—does not flow elegantly from Peck. Sophia Loren, while looking gorgeous and mysterious throughout the story, fares little better with what the poor script has her do.

And the script? It makes no sense. Peck is David Pollock, an American professor at Oxford who knows something about Hieroglyphics. He’s “hired” by sleazy Arabic shipping magnate Beshraavi (Alan Badel) to decipher a code in Hieroglyphics that he has stolen from a murdered spy. The prime minister of an unnamed Middle Eastern country, Jena (Carl Duering), also wants the code deciphered, because “there will be no peace in the world without it.” What? It’s unclear what conflict we’re talking about or what the situation really is. Pollock meets Beshraavi’s mistress, Yasmin Azir (Loren), who is working for another group of spies—maybe—or maybe she’s working for Jena—it’s not really clear—in fact, we don’t know what Yasmin’s motivation is for any of her actions in the film. Suddenly, Pollock is on the run as several factions of Arabs and others are out to kill him. Sometimes Yasmin helps him, sometimes she doesn’t. But, of course, they fall in love, and they prevent a political assassination in the meantime.

Okay, it’s a beautiful mess, but it’s still a mess. Even the misplaced slapstick sequences are dumb—and Mancini’s comic music that underscores some of these scenes is cringe-worthy (one example—when a drugged Pollock is standing in the road of a crowded freeway and playing “matador” to oncoming vehicles).

Kino Lorber’s new Blu-ray release looks quite gorgeous, showing off the colorful glitz that is the primary asset of Arabesque. It comes with an audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson, who all seem to enjoy the picture more than this reviewer did and yet point out all the same faults. A lovely half-hour featurette on Mancini is a welcome supplement. There is also a poster gallery (note the cover/poster art by the great Robert McGinnis), TV spots, the theatrical trailer and teaser, and trailers for other Kino Lorber releases.

Arabesque is a product of its mid-1960s origin, for sure, as it wants to be both Charade and a James Bond film. It is neither, but it might be a curiosity for fans of 1960s Hollywood spy movies and pristine cinematography.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER FROM AMAZON