Une ravissante idiote is a 1964 French film starring Brigitte Bardot and Anthony Perkins. Perkins speaks French and does his own dialog. I don't know if he dubbed his own English into the US release. It came out in the US under the title Agent 38-24-36 and in the UK as The Ravishing Idiot. It has a huge AKA entry on the IMDb which includes such titles as Bewitching Scatterbrain, The Warm-Blooded Spy, Agent Sex, Adorable idiota and the odd Agent 006. It's directed by Édouard Molinaro and François Billetdoux and André Tabet adapted the 1962 novel of the same name by Charles Exbrayat.
Anthony plays a bank clerk working in London. The film is filmed there and in France. Everyone still speaks French and all the other actors are French. It seems a bit odd but there you go. Anthony gets fired from his job at a bank at the start of the movie and his friend Bagda hires him to be a Russian spy. His first mission is to steal a valuable file from Sir Dumfrey. Brigitte is the beautiful seamstress of Sir Dumfrey's wife. MI5 have left the file in Sir Dumfrey's home safe. The file is a fake and they want the Russian's to steal it. Unfortunately Anthony is a pretty poor spy and his plans go haywire.
There's a bit of romance as Tony and Brigitte fall in love. There's a bit of danger when Bagda's boss sends assassins to disappear the witnesses. There's a bit of comedy, much of it is slapstick similar to what you might find in a Jerry Lewis movie but just not as manic. There might be jokes in the dialog but the translations don't always seem very good. It's 109 minutes and it could be a bit shorter. I was getting restless at the 89 minute mark. I enjoyed it but didn't get excited about it, there are better spy spoofs out there. It scores a 5.8 on the IMDb; I gave it a 6 but wouldn't give it a 7.
The Brides Of Fu Manchu takes up where our previous weeks movie left off. Fu Manchu escapes the explosives set by Nayland Smith and sets up a new crime headquarters in a Egyptian temple. Christopher Lee returns as Fu in the 2nd of 5 films. Director Don Sharp returns for his second and last Fu film. Harry Alan Towers is one of the producers and he wrote the screenplays for all 5 of the Lee Fu's. The script isn't awful but it isn't outstanding either. While it a rather low budget film they still have a fairly good bunch of sets, costumes and props. There are some nice locations in London to look at, too.
Nyland Smith is played by Douglas Wilmer and his sidekick Dr Petrie is played by Howard Marion-Crawford. Both men have been in plenty of productions. The Nayland Smith and Petrie relationship is rather like Sherlock Holmes and Watson. Wilmer played Sherlock Holmes in the 1975 film The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes Smarter Brother and in the 1965 BBC TV series Sherlock Holmes. Marion-Crawford would play Dr Petrie in all 5 Fu films and he's got plenty of other credits for his appearances in films and on TV.
Fu has a new plan for world domination. Fu is kidnapping the beautiful daughters of scientists. He wants the fathers to make him a death ray. They do and Nayland Smith has to stop him from using it. They don;t do very well at first. Fu blows up a ship filled with tourists, men, women and children. He's an evil bastard, that one. There's plenty of running around and nefarious deeds. Smith and Petrie type to protect a scientist and his daughter. Nayland Smith tricks Fu's henchmen into kidnapping the wrong man so they can penetrate Fu HQ. That gives them a leg up. They place their foot squarely in the ass of Fu Manchu's plans and kick them to the ground. The world is saved, at least until the fuggly head of Fu rises again. I've been enjoying these films and want to see the rest. While they aren't great cinema, I'd rather watch them than a lot of things.
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