The Statue

I saw this movie when it first came to theatres and forgot about it until just recently. I've looked for the DVD and found it on Ebay for almost $70 and on another site for $30. Any fans out there that can recommend a company that sells it for around $15 or $20? Don't want to be cheap, but I was young, young when I saw it and only remember laughing a lot.

Just for the record, David Niven is brilliant. I can't think of any role he didn't nail and I think he was probably a very nice fellow in his personal life...even tho...of course, that is completely none of my business. This paragraph is just filling space for the minimum amount of verbiage so I can post my search for a more reasonably priced DVD. Hope it isn't cheating!

Not as terrible as it's reputed to be, it's tedious rather than memorably bad; and at only 84 minutes feels a lot longer than it is. The script by Alex Coppel & Denis Norden (from the former's play 'Chip Chip Chip', and boy, does it feel like a play) unfolds like discarded scenes retrieved from Fellini's waste paper bin. Possibly inspired by the feverish speculation in the press as to the identity of the 'headless man' in the Polaroids produced in court during the Argyll divorce case in 1963, it's rather prescient of the routine photoshopping these days online of celebrities' heads on to the naked bodies of others.

The premise is also similar to Rouben Mamoulian's 'The Song of Songs' (1933). But the scandalous sculpture in that little gem was modelled by Marlene Dietrich and that film was a work of preCode sauciness whereas this is just another garrulous Italian sex comedy which aimlessly wanders about Europe while cameraman Piero Portalupi zooms back & forth between the cast and composer Riz Ortolani potters about on the soundtrack.

The Italian locations are obviously the reason why David Niven agreed to appear in this nonsense; while there are a several surprising British faces in supporting roles, including English Rose Suzanne Neve appearing topless, Hugh Burden & Eric Chitty as an elderly gay couple, two Pythons and a Goodie.

Alex Coppel is best known for his marvellous screenplay to 'Captain's Paradise' and his 'contribution' to 'Vertigo'. By all accounts he wrote a play called 'Chip, chip, chip.' One wonders where it was staged, if at all and who was in it!

He and Denis Norden have adapted it for this film directed by someone named Rod Amateau, an ex-stunt double most of whose directorial work was confined to the wonderful world of television.

Professor Alex Bolt is shocked to discover that the penis on the eighteen foot statue done of him by his renowned sculptress wife which is about to go on public display is decidedly not his own. He then embarks on an odyssey to discover whose amazing appendage it is and consequently behaves like a perfect dick, if you'll pardon the pun.

The actual premiss of the film is amusing and it begins rather well but alas quickly degenerates into an infantile, puerile and embarassing mess with the occasional funny line.

The outraged husband is played by David Niven who didn't make a decent film post 1963. Cinema goers tend only to remember the good ones which is just as well but as always he is saved by his immense charm. Robert Vaughn convinces as a slimy, opportunistic politician and as the sculptress Virna Lisi's smoky voice makes this viewer go weak at the knees. John Cleese is his customary forced, one-dimensional self. Ann Bell is haughty but naughty as Niven's assistant.

A fellow reviewer has very astutely noted a possible connection between this plot and the infamous Argyll divorce case of the early 1960's. The identity of the 'headless man' in the incriminating polaroid has never been truly established. It certainly wasn't Niven but by an amazing coincidence he had slept with the future 'Dirty Duchess' of Argyll when she was just fifteen which resulted in a secretly and speedily aborted pregnancy and they remained good friends until his death. Messrs. Coppel and Norden may or may not have drawn inspiration from the high society scandal but if they did the irony would certainly not have been lost on Mr. Niven.

The ultimate absurdity is when Niven's character discovers that the offending part has been copied from Michelangelo's 'David'. Although one of the greatest works of Renaissance sculpture, its genitalia is, in my humble opinion, nothing to write home about!

All-in-all a rather silly film that comes up short!

Prurient-minded comedy has acclaimed language professor David Niven furious over his sculptress wife's latest work of art: an 18-foot statue of a naked man with Niven's face but not his phallus (seems size is the sticking point). Since the statue has been commissioned by the US State Department for $50,000, it will be exhibited in public in London's Grosvenor Square; Niven fights to have the unveiling suppressed (on what basis--false advertising?). Alec Coppel's play "Chip, Chip, Chip" has become a shouting match on the screen. Niven argues with wife Virna Lisi, he shouts at US Ambassador to England Robert Vaughn, he's testy with advertising friend John Cleese, all the while dropping double entendres like bombs. Second-half of plot has Niven hoping to find the model who posed for the statue's torso, following his wife's male acquaintances into steam rooms and up mountain tops to get a look at their privates. It's supposed to be good dirty fun (with lots of bare breasts and bums), but nobody involved looks like they're having a high time. *1/2 from ****

When my friends ask me to name the absolutely worst movie I've ever seen, this is the one I always answer with. Considering Amateau's experience with comedy, and the quality of many of the cast members, this is a real disappointment. Maybe the saddest thing is watching David Niven trying to find the inspiration for a -- er -- feature on a statue his wife produced by skulking around lavatories, steam baths, and a bunch of other places. He looks vaguely embarrassed by it all, and really deserved a much better script. The trouble is, the production values of the film are too good for it to have much of a future on the midnight movie circuit. Plan 9, you're safe for now!