Une ravissante idiote

This is a bit of everything, a serious crime story about a dossier that needs to be stolen, a minor part of a love story between the hero and the heroine, a slight tad of crime, and a good amount of comedy.

Perkins speaking French, fluently, the only thing he's able to achieve in his role in this movie. Bardot with a fortunate role, fortunate, because she can do a bit more than just being a sexy puppet.

The cast is great, the script, however, lackadaisical. Some really funny scenes intertwined, like when police cars try to stop their car, with a cadaver on the back seat. The old lady lying on the carpet, with her feet erect, like in "The Trouble with Harry".

Unfortunately, some of the 'funny' scenes are unfunny. Like Perkins chased by an aspirator, very silly laughing of Bardot (played in from tape), and some more, like the 1920s slapstick with Perkins and the fight with dog and shoe. This is the problem of the script, though. They tried to put everything and anything into this movie.

When I watched it for a second time, I saw it much differently, since I knew the complete plot, including the ending. Bardot is pretty good at doing what her role is demanding from her in the light of the complete plot.

Looking for a comedy to improve my mood, I came across a gem of the genre - 'Une ravissante idiote', the 1964 film by Édouard Molinaro. Many of the French comedies of that period are among my favorites, and now I am adding one more. 40 years before the films of the 'Legally Blonde' series, Édouard Molinaro offers us a parody of spy films with a blonde that gathers in her all the stereotypes of jokes about blondes and adds a few more. If this movie were made today, pretty much everything would work perfectly, except maybe the original title that wouldn't pass the filters of political correctness. But then, in 1964, the role of the blonde was played by Brigitte Bardot.

The story takes place at a time when the cold war was in full swing and spies were prowling the streets of London, where the action happens. Harry Compton is a freshly fired bank clerk who is head over heels in love with the beautiful Penelope "Penny" Lightfeather. However, Harry is also the son of a couple of Soviet spies, and when he expresses his desire to emigrate to the Land of the Soviets, he is entrusted with a special mission - the theft of NATO naval plans in the event of a war. Back then such secrets were kept in real paper files with the code name of the plans on the cover! Penny also turns out to be a communist with a party card and as a seamstress she is well placed to break into the house of the high-ranking officer who keeps the plans in the safe box in his working room. The two lovers will soon have on their trail the agents and killers of the Soviet intelligence services, the police and agents of several British counterintelligence services. Their incompetence as amateurs and lovers will prove a formidable weapon. Their only weapon.

I liked the movie. The script emphasizes the comic scenes and highlights the two protagonists. Brigitte Bardot - BB - is in fantastic form, and Anthony Perkins demonstrates the nice guy qualities that made him one of the highest-rated film actors on the international stage at the time. The pairing of the two works well on screen - both comically and romantically. Around them swarm a lot of characters played by lesser-known actors, but all of them well chosen. Édouard Molinaro films with inventivity, playing with the camera, occasionally inserting freeze-frames or speed-ups. Everything at the right time and in good taste. The movie gave viewers of yesterday and today almost two hours of quality blonde entertainment.

Arguably the worst Tony Perkins' film that he did prior to the 1980s, this "comedy" in which he plays a bumbling spy trying to retrieve a file for the Russians concerning NATO military tactics, with the help of Bardot, is neither funny nor interesting. Don't bother with it.

"Une Ravissante Idiote" is the third comedy directed by Edouard Molinaro, who first directed shorts, then excellent Films Noirs. And for this comedy, Molinaro gets a great cast with Bardot and Perkins, it must have been a new experience, also shooting some scenes in London. Bardot and Perkins is nice couple, they work well together. But the script is not enough well written, some scenes are poor and some are brilliant, thanks to the speedy way of shooting by Molinaro, mostly in the slapstick scenes. It's a fine comedy, but should have been much better.

It needs to be said right off the bat that this is less than perfect, and while its faults are less prominent as the length draws on, they are the first facets of the picture to catch one's attention. Early exposition is rather inelegant, and I think the plot is genuinely more complicated than it needs to be; the extra layer of orchestration to the protagonist's mission makes the story a tad unwieldy. As if to emphasize the point, I read the premise for the film in a few different places and had a hard time making sense of what the contributor was trying to communicate, but it turns out it's not so much a problem with any user's literacy but a basic matter of trying to elucidate a needlessly overdone plot. Speaking of overdone, there's a lot of rather tawdry embellishment here at various points, be it footage that's sped up, cartoonish sound effects or music cues, exaggerated laughter (at least some instances of the latter being inserted in post-production), transitions or camerawork with an overly playful flourish, or a few gags that are absurd beyond the tone this otherwise carries itself with. This is a bit inconsistent generally where tone is concerned, adopting earnest, serious thriller airs at select times, significantly clashing with what is otherwise a frivolous, lighthearted romp. Setting aside the indelicacy of the outdated ableist language in the name of the feature, the character to whom that name refers is written a little inconsistently, too. And, dovetailing back into the construction of the narrative - even with all the cleverness that the movie can rightly claim through to the end, this feels longer than it is. Surely some of the writing could have been trimmed without meaningfully losing anything.

All this is the bad news, or at least those issues that place distinct upper limits on how enjoyable this might be. The good news is that more than not 'Une ravissante idiote,' also known as 'Agent 38-24-36,' is sufficiently smart and entertaining that its value well outweighs its disadvantages; it's imperfect, but ultimately I definitely like it. In fairness, those notable convolutions of the writing are intentional, somewhat spoofing spy flicks; that this goes a smidgen overboard, well, that's the risk of such material. Broadly speaking the story is fun and engaging, and sharp scene writing carries most of the weight not just in communicating that story but more importantly, in providing the comedy. There's no single stroke of brilliance here, and the end result is more lightly amusing than robustly funny, but still the sight gags, situational humor, and witty dialogue are more than suitable to give us a good time. The cast sure seem to be having a ball with the silliness of the scenario, not least Grégoire Aslan, Hélène Dieudonné, and chief star Anthony Perkins; given more license to ham it up on account of how Penelope is written, Brigitte Bardot stands out even more. Elsewhere, even if I disagree with the choices that were made or pointedly think they detract from the whole, everyone behind the scenes turned in good work. Édouard Molinaro deftly manages a film with so many moving parts in his direction; Andréas Winding's cinematography is more shrewd and mindful than not. The costume design, hair, makeup, and sets are pretty fantastic, and though more sparing in this instance, any stunts and effects come off well.

That 'Une ravissante idiote' is saddled with so many troubles is unfortunate, because they do serve to diminish the viewing experience in some measure. Be that as it may, it only wants its audience to have enjoy themselves, and though flawed, this is more than strong enough to achieve that goal. The plot could have been simplified a bit and impulses reined in, yet even as we see it the picture is a minor delight, and plentifully satisfying. I don't think there's any need to go out of your way for it, but if you do have the opportunity to watch, it's a decent way to spend a couple hours.