Per un corpo di donna

Robert Wagner spots Mary Tyler Moore's legs at the airport. He decides he might as well smuggle those watch parts into Paris. This leads him into a complicated plot involving having Barbara Rhoades write Glynis Johns' newest smutty book; Miss Johns has just discovered sex and is yachting in Greece with her lover. However, Miss Rhoades was a witness to a gangland killing and is marked for the next one, if only she hadn't been kidnapped because she was mistaken for Miss Moore.

By the end of this farce, everything will be sorted out, we can be certain. In the meantime, Wagner and Miss Moore must think up a constant barrage of misdirection and persiflage carried out at speed, so that audience is wondering what is going on., as Harvey Korman, business manager for seemingly everyone, has almost nothing to do in a comic way. Charles Williams adapted his novel The Wrong Venus for the screen and did a superb job.

A famous authoress (Glynis Johns, who barely puts in an appearance), decides to give up writing so her latest is ghosted by a young up-and-comer (Barbara Rhoades) who is kidnapped before she can add the finishing touches. Need I say she witnessed a gangland murder and her life is in jeopardy? All this happens off-screen before the movie starts, and once it gets cranked up pay attention. It moves like lightning.

Enter our heroes. Perhaps because she already had one successful television series under her belt, I assumed Mary Tyler Moore was older than the boyish Robert Wagner, but she's not.

After the weirdest "meet cute" I've seen, they get down to business. (1) rescuing the ghost writer from her kidnappers; (2) getting her to finish her novel; (3) smuggling her out of France alive. Unfortunately, as she's a six-foot redhead she stands out so (3) won't be easy.

Most of the movie is stage-bound, with Wagner masterminding the various ruses and Harvey Korman in near-panic mode. But they get out-of-doors occasionally.

Mainly, this is one of those silly-60s comedies where no children appear. They don't need to. Even the mobsters act like children (the work of the gangster posing as a French artist has to be seen to be believed).

Is it good? That depends on your feelings for Mr. Wagner. He directs everything and the others follow his lead (Korman as if it's doom, MTM as if it's all a great game).

You have to see this film to believe just how unspeakably bad it is. What I don't understand is, it couldn't have looked good on paper either. Who would have green lit such a mess or agree to appear in it.

If you are a Mary Tyler Moore fan I beg you not to watch. Remember her as the beautiful, mutitalented performer she was. If you are a Robert Wagner fan - well, it won't matter, will it?

There is not a single second of wit, laughs or style in this film. It is shockingly dull and pointless.

I have sat through many bad films in my time and this is the absolute worst. I just sat watching, speechless. A copy is on YouTube.

Screenwriter Charles Williams adapted his own book "The Wrong Venus" about an authoress of tawdry sex novels leaving her latest bestseller unfinished--seems she was a 40-year old virgin who finally got wind of what she was writing about! Another woman, an amazon who practices Judo, was brought in to finish the book but found herself witness to a murder and was kidnapped; now, her successor (an American man who smuggles watches into Europe!), attempts to rescue her with help from a savvy actress. To say this wacky caper is overly-involved is putting it mildly. Ron Winston directs the picture at a breathless pace, but Williams doesn't writes enough jokes... he's too busy creating more characters. Only in the movie's saner, quieter moments do the principals emerge as people, but we are seldom privy to their plans (all the scheming seems to happen off-screen). The cruelest blow delivered to Winston and his actors was Universal's apparent decision to film the comedy on their lot in Hollywood, with stock shots of France interspersed. One quickly grows tired of the need to hustle its cast indoors in order to betray the surroundings. Robert Wagner is surprisingly upbeat and frisky throughout (not his usual dour self) and he's matched well with Mary Tyler Moore (in a short brunette wig) and leggy Barbara Rhoades. Some funny scenes and exchanges, though it's often labored and galumphing. ** from ****

The scriptwriters went overboard with this complicated comedy involving the completion of a novel by a ghost writer because the original author is off with a newfound lover. The story involves a kidnapping which only complicates the storyline and unfortunately brings no laughs. Robert Wagner is his adorable self and Mary Tyler Moore is beautiful but not quite at her best. She was great in the Dick Van Dyck sitcom but her comedic timing is a bit off here. Probably due to a difficult assignment. Harvey Korman is wasted as the literary agent trying to pull this caper together. There is far too little of Glynis Johns as the absent author. Keeping track of all the characters and events in the movie becomes exhausting and detracts from the fun. The movie is worth a look because of the popular cast who all had better success in future endeavors.