Una Rolls-Royce gialla

A very enjoyable vintage film which the likes are not made anymore. Usually these all star cast epics are not too good, but this on and THE V I P's are well worth seeing. Three stories revolve around a yellow Rolls Royce with a common thread of back-seat "goings on". All three episodes are well done and photographed. The scenery is magnificent as is the music score. While all the actors are perfect in their roles, INGRID BERGMAN is the stand-out. This lady could do no wrong. SHIRLEY MACLAINE does her Shirley Maclaine to the hilt. A character very much like her earlier work in SOME CAME RUNNING. Since movies like these are no longer made, this is a must see for those enthusiasts who love old fashion movie making. Just out on DVD the transfer is wonderful. Too mad no extras as this one cries out for a commentary by at least one of the surviving stars.

And also some ravishing scenery. This movie has three separate segments, all of them well done in spite of a pretty tepid script. The actors are magnificent but I would have to say that Shirley MacLaine was amazing as a gangster's moll who falls in love and then sacrifices that love to save his life. Beautifully acted. Omar and Ingrid also shine in the segment about fighting in the hills of Yugoslavia. Of course in all three of the stories the males are mere foils for the females and the car itself. This movie is definitely a "guilty pleasure." 7 out of 10.

After the success of "The V.I.P.s" the year before, Anthony Asquith and Terence Rattigan are at it again with uneven results. The excuse this time is a Rolls Royce that passes hands from star to star. It is a formula used before many times, most successfully in Julian Duvivier's "Tales of Manhattan" in which a dinner jacket plays an important part in the destinies of Edward G Robinson, Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda and Paul Robson among others. More recently the formula was used by John Badham in his "The Gun" and then Martin Donovan in the lyrically powerful "Seeds of Tragedy" in which the Rolls Royce there is cocaine. Terence Rattigan was master at dialogue and his characters tended to move in confined spaces, take "Separated Tables" for instance. In "The Yellow Rolls Royce" we travel from England to Italy to Eastern Europe and the only confinement Rattigan finds for his characters is the interior of the luxury car. On the first segment, Rex Harrison and Jeanne Moreau show Rattigan at his best, they are great fun to watch. Harrison, playing a big shot at the foreign office, does wonderful things with Rattigan's words. On the second episode Shirley MacLaine and Art Cartney are lovely as a gangster's moll and her minder but the Italo-American gangster, as played by George C Scott, is so over the top that, practically, sinks the whole little segment. French star Alain Delon plays an Italian gigolo of sorts. He is beautiful to look at but hopeless at delivering Rattigan's lines. On the third episode Ingrid Bergman plays Ingrid Bergman, beautifully and Omar Shariff plays Omar Shariff, just as beautifully. Joyce Grenfell plays a cameo as Bergman's companion, as usually, when she's on, she steals the scene. As you may have gathered, this is the kind of picture that one would enjoy the most on a rainy Sunday afternoon. That in itself is a recommendation.

All the three actresses are beautiful and attractive: some honest and some dishonest. The men remain the drones to the queen bee in all the three episodes.

Jeanne Moreau is probably the weakest of the trio but elegant in her role as a wife who has a young lover. Shirley Maclaine is the classical stunning dumb blonde who has to make a choice to step into a stable, rich married life. The fascinating Ingrid Bergman chooses to step down from a wealthy peerage to a realistic rustic lifestyle using charming wit for achieving an honest end.

This is Asquith's last film with Jack Hildyard's cinematography that is patchy but stunning at times. As a film it is average but the casting and the performances of the three ladies and George C Scott are notable.

An impressive line up of noted international actors was accrued for this three part film, with the title car serving as the connective tissue between episodes (which occur several years apart.) Harrison leads with a tale involving the purchase of the vehicle for his wife as a belated anniversary gift. His character could almost be a cousin to Henry Higgins and is played in much the same manner, though with a slightly more serious and sentimental edge. The wife (Moreau, in a pretty wooden portrayal) turns out not to be so deserving of the Rolls. This sequence is lavishly appointed with impressive sets and costumes and that "veddy" British air, but winds up being pretty uneventful. Next up is Scott as a gangster touring Italy with his sidekick Carney and his moll MacLaine (who, in a blonde wig looks and acts alarmingly similar to Renee Zellweger in "Chicago"!) They purchase the car to get them to his home town. However, when Scott has to return to the U.S. to take out an enemy, MacLaine becomes enamored of a local gigolo (Delon) and pursues a tentative romance with him. Miscast Scott is aloof and hammy at the same time, but wears some nice suits. Carney does some nice, low key work. MacLaine (with her chewing gum, which should have gotten billing!) wears a bit thin with all the schtick and overacting, but she pulls off a few decent moments. The real highlight of this section (and of the entire film!) is the jaw-droppingly beautiful sight of the impossibly beautiful Alain Delon. Slathered in tan body make-up, his light blue eyes stand out like pools of spring water. His charm and lean good looks overwhelm even the striking location scenery. Finally, Bergman purchases the car to get her into Yugoslavia during WWII. Sharif bums a ride and eventually involves her in the transport of resistance fighters across rugged terrain. Bergman looks terrific in the early part of this story and creates an unusual and intriguing character, complete with a yapping Pekinese and a hilarious cohort (Grenhall, in a hilarious performance that is way too brief.) She and Sharif make an odd, but attractive pair. The film is beautiful to look at (even if the fabled title car looks like a rather unattractive taxi!) However, the stories just aren't memorable enough to make this film really matter. Very little occurs in them and there is precious little dramatic payoff in each one. The director had previously done the stiflingly static "The V.I.P.'s" and, though this film is far more opened up and varied, the overall layer of reserve is still in place. Still, it's great to see the various actors doing their thing, especially Delon and Bergman, and there are several beautiful scenic shots. In the end, it's a classy, sometimes stagnant, but always elegant film.