ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

ShadeGrenade 'After The Fox' probably looks funnier now than when it was first released in 1966. Peter Sellers plays 'Aldo Vanucci', Italy's top criminal mastermind - known as 'The Fox' - and also a master of disguise. When his cronies visit him in jail, he gives them food and magazines. Hearing that his sister Gina ( Britt Ekland, Sellers' wife at the time ) is walking the streets of Rome, he is furious and escapes by switching places with a psychiatrist. It turns out Gina is only making a movie. He wants her to go back to school, but she is determined to become a movie star. She has changed her surname to the more exotic sounding 'Romantica'. A daring bullion robbery has been pulled off in Cairo, and Aldo must help the thieves get the gold into Italy. He decides to trick the townspeople of Sevalio into thinking they are taking part in a movie, and to this end manages to secure the services of fading Hollywood matinée idol 'Tony Powell' ( Victor Mature )...At times, 'Fox' feels like an Italian version of one of Sellers' earlier British comedies, such as 'Two Way Stretch' and 'The Wrong Arm Of The Law'. Aldo shares many similarities to 'Dodger Lane' and 'Pearly Gates'. Neil Simon's script is not bad - though not among his better efforts - but it needed a director of the calibre of Blake Edwards to make it work. Instead we have Vittorio De Sica, and his heart is just not in it. As 'Vanucci', Sellers is okay, but its when he gets to impersonate eccentric director 'Frederico Fabrizi' ( pointing to his head, he says to Tony: "In here is my script!" ) that the film really starts to becomes funny, with some amusing jibes at the expense of the neo-realism school of cinema ( of which De Sica was a leading exponent ). Giving Sellers competition in the comedy department is Mature, with a highly amusing self parody as a film star who refuses to admit he is over the hill. When he brags to his agent 'Harry' that he is a youthful forty, the man replies: "But your son is thirty-five!". Another asset is the bouncy Burt Bacharach soundtrack. The catchy theme song was performed by Sellers ( as 'Vanucci' ) and 'The Hollies'. 'Fox' was not a big commercial success, but now seems a decent way to kill 90 minutes, even if it does end with a somewhat uninspired car chase.The best moment comes in the final scene. Vanucci is on trial ( along with the townspeople of Sevalio ). The film is screened to the jury. It is disjointed, jumpy, with jerky camera work ( just like every major film on release these days ). When it is over, everyone who took part looks embarrassed. A wild-eyed critic, however, proclaims it a masterpiece!

moonspinner55 Jailed in an Italian prison, the Fox--one of the last of the world's master criminals--escapes from his cell upon hearing of his sister's escapades; he gets the bright idea of going after a stolen fortune in gold bars recently smuggled out of Cairo, plotting to intercept the shipment at sea while pretending to be a film director making a neo-realist love story in an Italian village. Screenwriter Neil Simon and director Vittorio De Sica poking fun at European movie-making, with Peter Sellers in the disguise-laden lead. Overlong comedy should work, and intermittently it does, however De Sica's pacing is leaden and Simon tries working too much into the scenario (which culminates with a slapstick car chase followed by a pseudo-serious courtroom finale). Sprinkled with funny asides, the picture is utterly inoffensive and innocuous...and it should have been much better. Burt Bacharach composed the forgettable score (his and Hal David's title song performed by The Hollies with Peter Sellers is easily their weakest). ** from ****

funkyfry This is one of those movies that, even though it's entertaining, I have to assume the main reason it was made was simply the availability of these particular stars in this particular place. Like the original "Ocean's Eleven" which was basically made because Sinatra and the "rat pack" were available in Las Vegas on particular dates, this film feels basically like an extended Italian vacation for Peter Sellers, his then-wife Britt Ekland, and graying American movie star Victor Mature (who essentially makes fun of himself in the film). There's very little of consequence in the film, and it's all very predictable plot-wise, but Sellers manages to salvage more than one scene with his zany improvisations on Neil Simon's funny story.Sellers plays an Italian criminal mastermind who frees himself from prison and sets about importing stolen Egyptian gold by impersonating a new-wave movie director. "If only I could steal enough money to become an honest man," he laments as he frets about his movie-obsessed sister, played by Ekland.There are just a handful of really memorable scenes here that basically make the movie, and all but one (with Ekland unknowingly smearing Mature's hair dye all over her face) primarily involve Sellers. First Sellers bursts into Mature's hotel suite in the gregarious manner of an Italian film magnate, kissing Mature on both cheeks like old friends and thoroughly annoying the agent played by Martin Balsam. In another, Sellers convinces the local constable Lando Buzzanca to let them operate without a permit, and ends up with the guy eating out of his hand ("good morning!") while he tears his office apart.At times when Sellers is playing the director, you get a strong feeling that he's off the script and he's purposely skewering particular directors. It's all a bit weird, because the contrived film Sellers is making inside the film doesn't feel all that much more arbitrary or manufactured than the one we're actually watching.

mofwd To everyone who hasn't seen this film yet: Watch it ! Most people will possibly watch this movie because of Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland (at this time his wife).Another way to look at it is to understand it as part of the great work of Neil Simon who really did a fantastic script - again ! Simon also wrote "The Odd Couple (1968)" starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, the hilarious murder mystery satire "Murder By Death (1976)" as well as "The Cheap Detective (1978)" a great Bogart persiflage. However, once you've seen this movie, and if you like this style of witty dialog and the mixture of profound and absurd narrating, you have to go for lots of other Simon movies !