richardchatten

For much of the time in this early attempt by Danny Kaye to burnish his credentials as a serious actor with this black & while adaptation made in France of the play by Franz Werfel, which begins in Paris following the fall of France in 1940 and then follows a similar narrative arc to 'The Yellow Rolls Royce' as the very odd couple of Kaye and Curt Jurgens travel across France in a vintage car.

Looking very distinguished with greying hair, a moustache, a homburg hat and an overcoat, and spared his 'hilarious' patter songs, Kaye does a creditable job; especially as Sancho Panza to Jurgens' Don Quixote Akim Tamiroff makes the two leads look restrained by comparison.

Anybody who has reached middle age will recognise the quandary that the less your parents need to worry about you the more you have to worry about them; a situation Ines Conradi would be only too familiar with.

If you'd only seen the trailer depicting Erdmann in a frizzy wig and enormous false teeth that make him resemble Rowf the dog in 'The Muppets' you might be expecting something screwball. But what you actually get is a shaggy dog story; literally since Erdmann's behaviour is the result of him "having a crisis because his dog died".

Overall the film tends to harrowing rather than actually funny; with papa's idea of practical jokes being simply to gatecrash important clients' meetings and then just stand there looking like a scarecrow. While I'm not giving too much away (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) by revealing that he saves his strangest - and most hirsute - disguise untill last.

After he'd settled into his role as grand old man of international art cinema Bunuel tended to be rather inclined to disparage the films of the journeyman phase of his career in Mexico in partnership with producer Oscar Dancigers, which began with this frivolous-sounding entertainment.

Nevertheless, the impudent young fellow who had once collaborated with Salvador Dali here amuses himself with fanciful devices such as a Mexican band given to making spontaneous appearances in unlikely locations - on one occasion, even at the window of a prison cell - to accompany hero Jorge Negrette during the musical numbers.

Throughout Bunuel seems to be enjoying himself. And you probably will too.