Why locate the action in Florida?Everyone speaks French without the slightest accent! The French riviera would have done the trick quite well , and the guest American stars would have provided the movie with "the millionaire myth" which fascinates the European lazy gigolos.(compared to the highly superior "some like it hot",the sexes are reversed .)
Dodo (=Beddy-Byes) is a gigolo turning forty , who could not think,would not think about working ,a lazy good-for-nothing whose charms provide him with his subsistence ;but he's getting old and being a kept man is not always easy ,when,slowly but inexorably ,you're getting old, and when your lady finds (it's not hard to do) somebody wealthier than you;it was a tailor made role for handsome French charmeur Thierry Lhermitte .He made it a principle not to marry and he swears all along the movie he'll never fail to stick to it.
In direct contrast to him,here comes Jesus (sic)a not-so-handsome Italian violonist whose fiancee walked out on him .Shy, whining, he's an anti- Don Juan.
This flickle lady who also used to keep Dodo is nowhere to be found ;Both men join their forces , but Dodo's self-confidence an d incompetence make them easy preys for swindlers: Benjamin ,a decorated campaigner (Rod Steiger)who wants to retire inspire the two pals with confidence : a laundromat is an ideal investment : the others work ,you get the money.But things do not happen as expected .
The movie lacks tempo, causticity and madness, (it's Tacchella's wish ,but it's Wilder's reality.),but the cast is efficient with Marie-France Pisier ,as a French woman who hates French and Susan Blakely ,jet set flesh on the bone.
