L'isola dell'amore

It was on Channel 9 HD channel in Australia late night on Tue 2 June '08. Obviously a very rare screening of an odd little film. It's the worst performance I've ever seen from Tony Randall & Walter Matthau and that's saying something. Robert Preston is completely miscast. Michael Considine the father from 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding has a small part as a barman. They shot it on the island of Hydra and it's great to see the islands in the early 60's before the onset of commercial tourism. It's worth seeing the film just for that. Apart from the great Australian novelist George Johnston,another famous artist who lived on this island at around the same time was Leonard Cohen. His song 'Bird on a wire' was written on Hydra. This film is well worth a look for film buffs as it was also director Morton DaCosta's last film as he returned to the Broadway stage after this picture flopped. Only a year earlier he has been nominated for an Oscar for best film for being the director/producer of 'The Music Man'.

Its a lighthearted adorable movie. No great expectations just innocent fun and lots of laugh!

My tivo recently found this movie, so I gave it a watch. It wasn't awful, but it was pretty disappointing. It seems like they spent all the budget on the cast and location setting and had none left to hire any decent writers. The story is clunky and forced, the laughs tepid and infrequent. Robert Preston and Tony Randall gamely do what they can with the script, but it's really not enough to save the picture. Randall in particular just seems wasted. And Walter Matthau gives the worst performance I've ever seen from him; he not only doesn't help save the picture, he helps sink it. He just sounds so weird, wrong, and fake with that preposterous accent he's using.

I gave it 5 stars because I'll confess I did laugh out loud a couple times. But just a couple. Watch this movie as a curiosity, should the occasion arise, but don't go into it with any great expectations.

Hot on the heels of "The Music Man" Robert Preston plays another con man, this time in a scam peddling off-the-shelf Greek antiquities as the real deal, and in an attempt to turn a small Greek-related island into a new Monte Carlo. Very racy for the time.

But he's caught between mobsters whom he scammed in a too-long opening sequence (where the only funny thing is an ice-cream cone) and the local Greek authorities who want to slam him in the slammer (and they should). At one point the authorities forbid him to leave while, coincidentally, the big mobster after his blood is on his way. What is he to do?

Unfortunately Preston, who is very good, is stuck with Tony Randall giving a listless performance, and the overacting Michael Constantine, apparently trying to compensate for Randall's not being there. When I was younger I coined a phrase for Tony's dialed-in non-performances as his being Tony Ran-doll. I suppose he was so good as Felix Unger because better actors had done the role first, showing him how. Let's just say: Randall's been better.

And there's Walter Matthau who, for reasons known only to God, has adopted a lisp. It doesn't help his delivery and it's uneven.

Rather than a comedy in the modern, post-AIRPLANE! Sense, it's really more of a light idyll that once had lovely scenery, but the colors have faded on the unrestored prints available. It has some good notions but it's too timid to fully exploit them. After all, they want Preston as a loveable con man. He's good but he's not close to having the edge as he did with Harold Hill. This time, he doesn't want to collect his bonus and skip town; no, he wants to marry the girl. But she has doubts. As well she should.

"Island of Love" is pleasant diversion that must be seen in wide screen, but nothing to build an evening around. You can watch it while ironing or cooking or doing the dishes. Don't expect many laughs, but it's mostly harmless.

Great cast but the story is just stupid. Robert Preston is too old for his role and Tony Randall is wasted. Walter Matthau's accent is all over the place and he seems uncomfortable playing some idiot gangster. The movie is interesting as it is filmed on location in Greece before it was spoilt by mass tourism.