After the Fox (1966) Movie Review

All right. Welcome to The Real Generation Gap. I'm Rudy Ruiz. I'm Fred Sottoli. And today we're going to be talking about the 1966 heist comedy starring Peter Sellers, After the Fox. So, After the Fox stars Peter Sellers, Brett Eklund, Tony Powell, no, Victor Mature playing Tony Powell, with Peter Sellers playing Aldo Vannucci, a criminal mastermind that decides to pull out a heist, stealing some gold, but under the disguise of this avant-garde movie where he kind of takes over this village and convinces them that they're all making this movie that is really just them stealing this gold as like a collective group, which I think was a really great idea. And directed by Vittorio De Sica, which I thought was when I first looked it up on IMDb, I was like, wow, that guy, like who you might know, directed The Bicycle Thief, Umberto Di, so really big in the Italian neorealist film movement back in the day, post-war. And so I thought that was really interesting. And he even has a cameo as the film director that they steal all the equipment from. But yeah, so this movie was recommended by Cynthia Zhania, left a comment on our New Year's episode, which happy New Year's everyone. We are in 2025. So thanks Cynthia for the comment and the recommendation. So yeah, let's talk about it after the Fox. Did you see this one in theaters? This was my first time. So I don't think I saw this in theaters. I would have been eight years old or 11 years old or something like that. Anyway, we do the math later, but I've seen it many times on TV and what, I don't know if you realize when they made the Pink Panther in 1963, it was just a one-off movie. They didn't even really have franchises yet, but everybody liked that so much and they liked the wacky character and everything. So they made A Shot in the Dark the following year. And it was sort of that same guy, but instead of Aldo Vannucci, now he was Jacques Clouseau, which made me laugh then because my natural father loved Jacques Cousteau, the diver, right? So that's when that character first appeared, the detective, and then that went over so well that they made this after the Fox. And then of course, 10 years later, they finally made another Pink Panther movie, The Pink Panther Strikes Back. So it was interesting, the whole reasons, like the sequence, they didn't realize when they made the first one that they were even going to make the second one. And a lot of times with movies, those things are planned. You have a serious plan, but this was not like this. This was real organic. And one of the things that I really loved about this movie is the theme song was sung by the Hollies, who had hit songs at that time. And Britt Eklund was a very hot model at the time. They didn't have supermodels yet, but she was like a name and Peter Sellers married her. So they were married when they made this movie. So just imagine how fun their life was. They got married. He had the Scandinavian model. He was the movie guy. They made this wacky movie together. They had the rock band guys sing the theme song. The theme song was silly. I've actually read that because I don't know much about Peter Sellers and his history outside of, I think I mentioned Dr. Strangelove. I've seen that Lolita. I haven't seen Pink Panther, but I was reading that. I think him being married to Britt Eklund and then working together caused a lot of issues and a lot of tension. He had a lot of problems and a big part of why he wanted her in the movie with him was so that she wouldn't run off with some other actor or there wouldn't be any infidelity. And there was a lot of arguments and he was very controlling. After their marriage, she went with Rod Stewart. You know what I mean? The potential for that. And then ultimately married Jim Phantom. And by the way, what you're saying about that they had a little problems and stuff like that, that was all Peter Sellers. He was a maniac. He was hard for everybody to deal with. And he really was a genius in his own way. Kind of like Jonathan Winters. How those other characters were in his head. He was always everybody, sort of got to have a party all by himself and be everybody in the room. But yeah, they had a tough time together and anybody would have a tough time with him. He just wasn't built for that. He's just not a loner, but just an impenetrable force or just a unique force of nature. And it's wonderful that there are people like that. They just produce tons of fantastic stuff. It's too bad that it's at the cost of a lot of inner turmoil and depression and all this stuff with these types of comedians. That man committed suicide. His home up in Northern California was the most beautiful home I ever saw. It was like, you had nothing to live for. It's disastrously bad, but there are plenty of these people. We're blessed with them and we get to enjoy their hell. It's kind of weird and sad, but just the stuff he did, even in the theme song, the Holly Signer part, and then he has this narrated part and it's just this weird voice. And it's like, how would you even think of making that voice? But for him, he did. So every movie that he makes is a tribute to him. One of the things that got me was the beautiful woman in the movie, Maria Grazia Buccella. She's the one who goes out in the desert and she's in a bikini and the truck wrecks. It's amazing to me how beautiful women are. Beautiful women really can cause a car accident. They had that. They told me when I was 17 in driver ed in high school, it's like, you see these girls on the side of the road, don't do one of these numbers. You're going to end up in a tree or something. So in this movie, when that incredible woman, they have her dressed like a Muslim, all in a black thing. And then she takes that off and she's in a bikini model. They didn't have supermodels yet. And then later on, she's the beautiful woman who is the alter ego of Okra, who's the criminal trying to steal the gold of Cairo. And how funny was that scene when he saw her at the table, they said, there's your contact. And he goes over to the beautiful woman and he says, hi, how you doing? And he's back to back with her and he's doing the talking, but she's perfectly mouthing the words. He says, I'm the contact. I'm Okra. The woman is not important. He's like, the woman's not important. And she's such a goddess. It's women really do like, there are a lot of good looking men and everything, but women really are spectacular. Yeah. You know, and, and depending on your, depending on your foible, like the kind of woman you like may not be the kind that I like. Like a 10 for you might not be a 10 for me. Right. And that's real interesting. And to make my political statement to, to, to just to show you how true this is, female models make a lot more money than male models for the same work. So there's your, there's your, there's your equity comment for this episode. All right. But she really is. Are you stupefied by her the way I was? Yeah, no, she was gorgeous. Yes. Like over the top, like inhuman, inhumanly gorgeous. And I did like the reveal of the, of the voice. I thought it was going to go a different direction at first and then they reveal, okay. Yeah. He's behind her head. It wasn't a man in disguise. Yeah. And I will say the, the dubbing of that was so well done. It was actually pretty incredible. Like that's not easy to do by any, any means. Yeah. It was really, really good. I mean, yeah. They must've rehearsed the heck out of that part. They showed them both talking at once. Yeah. Yeah. And back to back. So it's not like, I feel like, yeah, well, I feel like those shots where you see him and you see a little bit of her, that's where it like fell apart a bit, but when it's just on her, it's, it's yeah. It's something else. It's really good. I did. I did really like that, that idea. I thought that was pretty fun. The movie is, is a whole, I kind of feel like I'm in this weird middle zone where I think I'm going to get more enjoyment or I'm already getting more enjoyment out of like talking about it, then watching it, you know? Cause I mean, not that it wasn't good. Like I liked it. It wasn't a slog to get through, but you know, a lot of the humor is just for me. And we've talked about this in other films we've reviewed as just kind of like, okay, it's not that funny, but well, humor is always dry. It's always like offhand comments and realizations, you know, where he like identifies someone's shortcoming or something and in a, in a, in a real spontaneous way and they go, what, what, you know, like he'll, he'll make some statement. And there's a lot of that in this movie. And in any of those, like the pink Panther stuff and everything, they had that same character that, that the bumbling, I don't even know how to describe it. It's so it's, it's an interesting kind of comedy. It's a, it's, but they did have like when they had the car slapstick, you know, Keystone cop car chase thing, you know, and they were, they were doing, so they had like that kind of funny physical humor, you know, which was just kind of silly. Yeah. The cop's coming in to get him and he's hiding and he's in the bathtub and he's on his character where he cared about his sister's virtue and his mother's care above anything. So when he's trying to woo the really beautiful woman, he's hiding her in the closet. Right. That was a good moment. And the guy comes up and he says, where is he? The beautiful woman? He's like, I don't know. And he goes, I don't, I need to know where my sister, he goes, your sister, he opens the door. He'll listen to your brother. How dare you come here? He had a priority. You know, that was such an Italian thing. And his pulling off the Italian accent was the, it was the character of an Italian accent was so great. Yeah. It was so great. I did. I, I felt like it took a little while to get to the aspect of making the movie, like the fake movie for the heist. I feel like I could have used a little more of that. Cause I think to me, I maybe just cause I do like movies that are about making movies. And even though this is a fake version of that, it's still just, I think there's just a lot of humor to pull from that, from the absurdity of what film sets are like and actors and all the people behind the scenes. Well, how about the way they stole all the equipment? They went to where the actual director of that movie was directing a movie. And then they had to have the sandstorm and they had such a big sandstorm that nobody can see anything. And that's when they stole all the movie equipment so that they could go to Savalio and offload the gold of Cairo. And in the beginning of the movie, they described, they said like, there was the great chain robbery. There was a great bank robbery. Then there was the gold of Cairo. And then, then they showed the police who could pull off this. And they said, well, there was the British guy, but he had the bad eyesight. Then there was the German guy who was too fat to make the escape. Like he couldn't get out the door. Go. The only one left is Aldo Vannucci, but he's in prison. And then he did. I Aldo Vannucci will be out of here at three o'clock tomorrow. Yeah. I like that whole prison escape and everything he's got. I mean, Sellers has a lot of, um, like gravitas to him, the way he's talking to his friends and the, and his confidence. And then again, putting on these, these characters and everything like the priest and he interrupts the movie to go get his sister. And, and just the way he's how about the carabinieri right. When he's at the carabinieri, he was the, like the secret police. Oh yeah. Crazy outfit. Like why is the Scotland yard or the CIA or the serpe would be in France, right? Why do the Italians have like a clown costume for those guys? Good question. It's so Italian, right? And he goes in the movie theater. He's got the big hat on the lease. He would have removed carabinieri, you know, his closet had all disguises when he went home doing costumes and stuff. And I didn't catch this in the movie, but I read it after the fact that, you know, in Gina's room, his sister, Gina Romantica, she has, I love the design of her room. Cause it's all the old Gina Romantica. It was all the old Italian, like film posters and everything. And I love those designs. Yeah. Like Fellini stuff that we're doing like that era. Yeah. Like once again, he's poking fun at that whole, like nouveau impressionistic, like that, that whole movie was that. Yeah. But one of the posters was that an Italian poster for the pink Panther that had Peter Sellers name on it and everything. So I got it. I didn't notice. Yeah. I got to look and catch that. But, um, you know, I mean, I think it's funny when, you know, convincing the town and everyone just so excited to be in this movie and put me in and put me in it. And the way he's walking around with a little, the, Oh my goodness, the viewfinder and the other little dark eyepiece that gaffer's use. And there's just the way he talks to everybody and just takes his command and is BSing his way through it. Like when the actor's telling him the, uh, Tony Powell character, what are we doing? Like, what are we, what are we doing? What are we saying? And he's like, Oh, let me think about it. Nothing. And he's just like, it's a commentary on how people can't communicate and can't live in. And he's just like, that's beautiful. That's great. They're just sitting at the table, not saying anything. Right. They buy anything he says, anything he says is good. And just, I just need you to run that scene. We did nothing that that's one of my favorite moments, Rudy, when he, when Victor mature is sitting at the table and he goes in the last scene, we did nothing. He goes in this scene, we do something. And Victor mature goes. Yeah, no, that's it. But even that shot, Martin Balsam says, no matter how fast you run, you can't run away from yourself. And he goes, no matter how fast do you run, you kind of run away from yourself. And then it's like, they're running, they literally run across the town. Like they're gone. And they go so far that when they come back, the people all applaud, you know, I do love the beauty of that shot too. If it feels like it would be in a real movie and it probably is where, when they are sitting at the table and it's just the beach and the water, and then, yeah, and then just the two of them there. And I just think that that's so funny because they, they did a really good job capturing, like you said, like the Fellini, the Antonioni type, type vibes, man, when they finally are watching the footage at the end and the core and the camera guy or his friend who's pretending to be the camera guy, just shot all the stuff between the shots, like never captured it. And it just, you know, like just the back of their heads or him, him whistling or once they ran to the seat and they do the tail slate and all that. I just thought that was, I think, man, I don't know. I feel like that could have been played up a little more. They could have found funnier shots to do in that little sequence. You know, I almost felt like that was like a quick and dirty ending. Yeah. Like they didn't really try. Yeah. You know? I did think it was, it did make me laugh a little bit when that one guy stands up and he's like, this is the work of art. This is the most brilliant film I've ever seen. Who is this idiot? Yeah. You can't put this, you know. Oh my God. And the judge says, who is this idiot? He goes, I'm the film critic. Everybody in the film was so embarrassed. Like the chief of police, Gina Romantica. And like, everybody was like, oh my God. And you see Victor Mature's just like, you know, and then at the end, yes, that was amazing. It's funny. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. There's, there's some truth to that, which I just thought was hilarious. And there's a part, there's a part of the story too, that is so true in life and it gets ignored by everybody. The plan was undone by two things. The first thing was the boat didn't land on time. So even though Peter Sellers set up everything to unload the gold from the ship and make a getaway, it was like the guy who antagonized him the whole time said, you better not screw up. You better not screw up. He screwed up. It was like stall. And that's why they had to make the fake movie because he was stalling for time. Then the other thing that got him undone was his sister who wanted to be the movie star, Gina Romantica. At one point she called her mother and she said, come out here. And the police were keeping an eye on the mother. So when she got on the bus to go to Savalio, they were like, she's making a move. They must've called and that's what undid it. That's what brought all the police in. So in my own life, I find that as I do things, there's always some nitwit in the background doing some innocuously small, innocent thing that screws up my whole deal. And that was true in the movie. Like if that, she was so proud to be making a movie with the extremely handsome Tony Powell. All right. That, that was great that she wanted to make sure she was a good enough on screen kisser on screen kisser. So she goes to his room at night and comes onto him heavy. Like kiss me, make me teach me how to kiss on screen. And of course he's, you know, he's really an old man trying to act like a young man. So he didn't, he put the hair dye in and then she had it on her face when she held his hair and went like this. That was so funny, but. Yeah. No, I love, I love what you bring up with, with the end there. And I thought that climax was going to be a little more big and ground when I'm like, Oh, here's the part where everything's going to, you know, it's going wrong. And I guess, I mean, I guess it was, I don't know something about it. Didn't quite hit for me. Cause even we have Okra who gets greedy and just throws his friend out the truck and turns the smoke on and he's just going to take off with the gold. And we get a little bit of a chase where there's one part where like three of the cars turn this corner and more and more, I just appreciate stunts in movies and they did a wild like car stunt and that like no jumping or anything crazy like that, but just narrowly taking a very sharp turn and missing the wall and another car coming through. It's like not that long of a shot, but I'm like, damn, man, you guys were doing this in the 1966 right here. Like, right. That was a dangerous movie. Just pulled off. So I just appreciate moments like that. And it's great that the, the prosecutor says, I have evidence of what they did. They said, what evidence? He goes, the film you shot the gold of Cairo. And then the looking at each other, like, cause nobody was shooting anything. Yeah. Right. At the one point the guy was leaning on the camera and Martin Balsam says, aren't you supposed to be filming this? Oh yeah. Yeah. This part was great because he, at that one point he says, I'd like to look at the contract and Peter Sellers says, here's my contract. And he kisses him on both cheeks. And Martin Balsam says, can I get a copy of that for my lawyer? I love that him being just the voice of reason in a totally insane world. Yeah. And where's the script? What's it about? It's all it's in here. Yeah. Well, one of the, I mean, this is probably the stupidest joke in the movie, but it did make me chuckle a little bit is, you know, he keeps doing the thing with the viewfinder just putting on that show. And the guy gives him an ice cream and he gets distracted and it was so dumb. The ice cream and looking through the viewfinder, he puts the, but those kinds of subtle things, you know, the movie's got a thousand of those. Right. I really liked the movie. I think the people need to see all four movies. A shot in the dark is really awesome. It's as awesome as this, you know, especially the nudist camp scene, you know, he has to infiltrate the nudist camp. So he's got a guitar and he's walking around with a guitar, you know, but it's equally funny anyway. I love the way that they poked fun because that was heavy then. Yeah. That's when Fellini was doing his thing and the whole world was looking at that. And here, I mean, this is the, I'm talking about busting balls, you know? Yeah. I mean, he really, every stupid thing. I love movies like that, like tropic thunder, right. Or the fall guy is a current one. It's like they're making a movie and then the guy's in the movie and he's trying to make the movie while busting the criminals. You know, that's all I have to say about this. It's not a masterpiece masterpiece. I can't give it a 10, even though I love it. So I'm going to go with an eight. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to give this one a five. I think it's worth checking out again. Like I mentioned is in, you know, super funny to me, but there's aspects I like about it, especially if you are familiar with some of these older films, if you've seen Fellini, if you've seen Antonio and you know, some of the stuff from that, that yeah. I still haven't seen that one. I know, I know I can't find a blu-ray. I need to find a blu-ray, but yeah. So yeah. I mean, I recommend it. I'm going to give it a five. I'll give it a five. It does. It does have me interested in seeing five with a bullet, you know, the other films that you've mentioned. So yeah. Cool. So that's it for this one, everybody. Again, thank you, Cynthia, for the recommendation. If anyone else has some just leave a comment below and once again, happy new year from us. We got some great picks coming up for the rest of the year here. So cheers.