Arabesque: Stanley Donen's Follow-up to Charade

Sophia Loren as Yasmin.

Oxford University professor David Pollack (Gregory Peck) is ill-prepared for spies, murder, and abduction when he agrees to translate a hieroglyphic message. On the plus side, he rather enjoys spending time with an exotic beauty named Yasmin (Sophia Loren), who may be working for the good guys...or the bad guys. Frankly, for much of Arabesque, David doesn't know who to trust.

Made in 1966, Arabesque is a breezy entertainment in which the plot is purely secondary. For the record, it has something to do with a Middle East country whose prime minister is about to sign an agreement that will devalue an oil baron's (Alan Badel) empire. The key to everything is a piece of paper with the aforementioned hieroglyphics (which in Hitchcockian terms is the film's MacGuffin).

Gregory Peck as the professor.

Style takes precedence over narrative in Arabesque, which was clearly-intended as a follow-up to the more successful Charade (1963). Both films were directed by Stanley Donen with music by Henry Mancini and with two big stars in the lead roles. More specifically, both films featured male stars who were much older than their female co-stars. A key difference, though, is that the roles have been reversed. In Charade, Audrey Hepburn's character is the innocent who gets caught up in the intrigue. In Arabesque, Gregory Peck plays the naive college professor who soon finds himself mixed up with villains and double agents.

Unsurprisingly, Donen wanted Charade star Cary Grant to play Pollack opposite Sophia Loren. However, Grant allegedly didn't like the screenplay, although the dialogue was written with him in mind. While Gregory Peck is a fine actor, it's strange to hear him spout Cary Grant one-liners--which seem to fall flat most of the time.

Loren being zipped into Christian Dior.

In contrast, Sophia Loren appears much more comfortable in the role of the mischievous Yasmin, whose willingness to use Pollack eventually gives way to caring for him. She also gets to wear a lot of fabulous Christian Dior dresses and hats. I've read that she wears twenty different pairs of shoes in Arabesque, though I didn't stop to count them.

With its colorful locations and Donen's nimble direction, Arabesque works as a satisfactory way to spend 105 minutes. Still, those hoping for a repeat of the Charade magic will be sadly disappointed.

Feel Good Movies: A Delightful Italian Neorealism Variation of Cinderella - "More than a Miracle" (1967)

I fell head over heels in love with this movie in 1967. I saw it 6 or 7 times, immersing myself into its charming and delightfully different reworking of the basic Cinderella tale. In Italy it was titled Cinderella Italian Style; however, a prince seeking a bride and a peasant girl longing for a better life are the only similarities to the original. The eclectic mix of fairy tale elements, including flying monks and an ancient sorceress, royal romantic intrigue, unexpected moments of comedy and drama, the charisma and lusty chemistry between Sophia Loren and Omar Sharif, a lovely musical score and sweeping vistas of the starkly beautiful Naples countryside proved to be a thoroughly soul-satisfying movie-going experience that did not diminish with multiple viewings.

More than a Miracle was the brainchild of Sophia Loren's husband, producer Carlo Ponti, who envisioned a film which would appeal to an international audience. Omar Sharif, whose star power had increased following his performance in Doctor Zhivago, was chosen to play the devastatingly handsome, but arrogant, Prince Rodrigo. Ponti's choice of director Francesco Rosi. however, was startling. His previous films, Salvatore Guiliano (1961) and Hands Over the City (1963) incorporated the Italian neorealism themes of social and political injustice created by the ever-increasing disparity between the classes, exemplified in the classics The Bicycle Thief and Umberto D. Amazingly, amidst the fantasy and magic, Rosi effectively applied the socioeconomic tenets of neorealism to the relationship between Sharif's prince and Loren's peasant girl, and the painfully obvious difference in their social status, which almost derails the requisite happily ever after ending.

The hoped-for happy conclusion of this fractured fairy-tale is attained after a series of unusual events triggered by Prince Rodrigo's failure to obey an order from the King of Spain to find a wife. He escapes from the meddling of his marriage minded mother, riding his magnificent white horse at breakneck speed, resulting in a tumble out of the saddle. He walks to a monastery where he gets advice from one of the friars about finding a wife and is offered a method of choosing the right one. While looking for his horse, he encounters the strong-willed peasant girl Isabella. He finds himself attracted to this earthy beauty and decides to subject her to the friar's test. It looks like she will fulfill the requirements when she makes a disqualifying mistake. Rodrigo is furious with her for not completing the task, and decides to punish her. His plan is to pretend he is dead and then disappear. The horrified Isabella acquires a spell to bring him back to life, but misreads the formula, resulting in an immobilized Rodrigo, his entire body frozen like a statue. Various bizarre concoctions are used in an attempt to counter the spell, including an ammonia-scented, warm yellow liquid. However, it takes a kiss from Isabella to release him from the curse. A revived Rodrigo wreaks his revenge on Isabella by locking her in a large wooden barrel and rolling it down a hill towards the sea; however, she is rescued by a a rag-tag gang of beach urchins. A repentant Isabella abandons the black arts and obtains a position in Rodrigo's household as a laundress, hoping to win his love on her own merits. She doesn't realize how close she is to attaining her goal as Rodrigo already harbors a deep affection for her, which soon evolves into the love of Isabella's dreams. Of course the issues of her lower class status and his mother's staunch opposition to such a union must be resolved. Rodrigo concocts what seems to be a perfect solution: He organizes a dish-washing contest among the 7 prospective brides and declares that he will marry the woman who breaks the least amount of dishes, knowing that their lily white hands have never come in contact with dish water. He disguises Isabella as a princess certain that she will be the winner and his bride. As predicted, Isabella is far ahead of the others, when inexplicably her dishes start to break in half. Her momentum is disrupted and she becomes increasingly frantic as the breakage continues to diminish her lead. She is ultimately defeated by a pampered aristocrat who had never worked a day in her life! Rodrigo is stunned and infuriated by this unexpected turn of events and publicly denounces Isabella, his rage blinding him to the possibility of sabotage. A despondent Isabella flees from Rodrigo's anger and contemplates drowning herself, but is convinced by the gentle friar from the monastery, now a saintly presence, to return to Rodrigo and reveal the conniving contest winner who used her diamond ring to weaken the stability of Isabella's stack of plates. The lovers are reconciled and their engagement is announced with much fanfare as they walk arm in arm through the crowd, aware of nothing except the love in each other's eyes.

In his TCM article on More than a Miracle, Jeffrey Stafford wrote:

“When More Than a Miracle opened theatrically, it was well received by most Italian film critics but failed to find an audience outside its own country. Maybe the mixture of flying monks and jousting tournaments and cackling witches and dishwashing contests (a major set piece towards the film’s climax) was just too eclectic for American moviegoers. Either that or sixties audiences felt they were too hip for an old-fashioned fairy tale. The Time magazine reviewer probably said it best: ‘That anybody would bother these days to make so slender and fanciful a film is a miracle in itself; to do it with such a profusion of visual beauty is More than a Miracle’ "(Stafford,TCM, Par. 4)

The fact that I had never considered myself even remotely hip may have been the reason I found comfort and joy in this "lost" (not available on VHS or DVD) component of Sophia Loren's filmography. Those who ignored this film robbed themselves of the opportunity to see Sophia's radiant and lighthearted performance and a chance to marvel at her incredibly vibrant beauty. I may have been an audience of one, but I was more than willing to suspend disbelief and bask in the whimsical glow of this enchanting film.