Arabesque

Stanley Donen – 1966 – USA

Not content to have made one of the most famous Hitchcock rip-offs ever, 1963’s Charade, musical director Stanley Donen decided to do it again three years later. Thankfully, he seemed to learn his lesson this time and never made a third part of a trilogy, though he still made a ton of further junk before retiring. Arabesque is even more hackneyed, awkward and cliche-ridden than its predecessor. It offers fine examples of everything that was wrong with Hollywood movies in the 60s, things that led to a rebellion by audiences and the collapse of the studio system. I’m not sure what Donen or the studio honchos were thinking, but when it comes to wisecracking hieroglyphics scholars, Gregory Peck doesn’t jump to mind as the ideal embodiment. He runs around and smirks and flirts with Sophia Loren, who looks just as unconcerned with acting here as she would in her very next film, Charlie Chaplin’s A Countess from Hong Kong. It’s something about international espionage, spies and double agents, mixing comedy and murder in a way that never works. The entire attitude of the film seems to be, “Hitchcock did it, so we can too,” and that arrogance only underscores why Hitchcock was so great, (even though his own film from 1966, Torn Curtain, is far from his best work). What ever you do, don’t miss the hilarious scene where Peck, still clad in his suit, has to get into a shower with a nude Loren, who can’t figure out how to pick up the soap without exposing her front to him.