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David Niven's career hit rock bottom when he signed on to do The Statue. For a man whose name on the screen stood for charm and sophistication what was Niven thinking when he signed for this?

Niven plays a Nobel Prize winner whose wife Virna Lisi is a sculptress and has done a larger than life statue of him. However she's given him some enhanced privates obviously inspired elsewhere and Niven spends the whole film looking for the inspiration.

David Niven has uplifted more films than any other actor by dint of his personality. But this one is just too heavy a lift. It's got all the element of a stag film without the prurient interest that would make one watch.

God only knows what Niven was thinking.

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!

There are so many worthy cult movies from the 1970s that I (among many others) wish were released on DVD, so I can't understand why this forgotten bomb was resurrected on the format. Although they say that there is no bad premise, just bad executions of premises, the premise of this particular simply doesn't seem promising. David Niven looking to find out what man's sex organ was modelled for his sculpture wife's statue? To me, that sounds both desperate and lame. And the actual execution doesn't suggest that anyone in front of or behind the camera was trying. Indeed, the premise is so thin that there are big chunks of the movie where it's very clear that NOTHING of significance is going on. Maybe that wouldn't matter if the movie was funny, but it simply isn't. The only thing about the movie that will stick in your head after watching it is the infectious song "Charlie", which is played several times during the course of the movie.

This has got to be one of Niven's most embarrassing films. It is horrible, silly, low, insulting, insipid and stupid. Running around the world trying to see other men's privates and a pretty thin pretext for a plot. Hey, if a guy doesn't pay attention to his wife for years he shouldn't get all self righteous when he thinks she's fooling around. In a real sense he has committed adultery with this work as co-respondent. This movie is almost as insulting as "Impossible Years" where his character goes nuts over his daughter's virginity.

The statue is on the same comedic level as Benny Hill. But that's what we expect of Benny. Not of David Niven.

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 ****