A Ravishing Idiot Reviews

Perkins, a very proper clerk at the Bank of England, replete with tightly furled umbrella, is actually the son of a Russian. He is enraptured by Bardot, who works as a couturiere for Provence, the wife of British security chief, Luguet. When the bumbling Perkins loses his job, he grudgingly gives up on capitalism and joins his father's old friend, Soviet agent Aslan, in a plan to steal British Admiralty secrets dealing with the disposition of NATO troops in Europe. Unknown to Perkins, Luguet has substituted fakes for the real documents and given the fakes to blabbermouth Provence, hoping to use them as bait to snare a Soviet spy ring. Luguet has Provence stage a reception to lure the spies. Perkins, escorting Bardot, wangles an invitation. In a series of silly sequences, the fake documents pass from agent to agent until, finally, mastermind Aslan and his henchmen are killed in a shootout. Perkins is reunited with the beauteous Bardot, who proves to have been a British agent all along. This mindless piece of fluff had numerous problems. For example, London's police constables were depicted stopping pedestrians and asking to see their papers, in typical Gallic fashion. This caused much hilarity among British audiences. Location scenes were originally scheduled to be filmed in England. At the initial set-up, Bardot was fashionably late. Word spread and crowds gathered. When police stepped in, with truncheons at the ready to control the menacing crowd, director Molinaro cut and ran; Bardot scrambled into a waiting limousine. Cast and crew members headed back to France, where production resumed.