After the Fox Reviews

A visual delight thanks to director De Sica, this Sellers vehicle is loaded with belly laughs thanks to an uneven but solid script by Simon. As the flamboyantly inept Fox, a master thief, Sellers breaks jail in order to arrange the passage to Rome of $3 million in gold bullion stolen in Cairo. After his escape, Sellers pops up almost frame by frame in a host of disguises--a prison doctor, a tourist cameraman, an Italian cop, and a zany New Wave film director, spoofing the avant-garde in a merciless portrayal. Part of that parody has Victor Mature (making a movie within the movie) as an aging star trussed up with corsets and insisting he wear the threadbare trench coat and battered hat from his 1940s films. Mature is brilliant at mocking his former film noir persona, and interplays memorably with Sellers. In another spoof the Italian actors zestily parody stereotypes of themselves and their country: their casual ways, indifference to authority, and sexual passion. Particularly outstanding are the desert scenes, where De Sica himself is attempting to direct a movie during a violent sandstorm and has his equipment stolen by Sellers and Tamiroff.