Last night’s move at the Austin Film Society: After the Fox. Peter Sellers plays a master criminal who stages a bogus movie production to smuggle a load of stolen gold into Italy. Directed by an Italian, set and filmed in Italy, partially dubbed in English, starring Peter Sellers as an Italian, speaking English with an Italian accent. Oh, and a script by a budding Neil Simon. It’s kind of a weird mish-mash that probably couldn’t exist today, but somehow seems natural coming from the 60’s.
All this manages to fit perfectly with the ridiculous tone of Sellers hoodwinking an entire Italian village that he is a famous Italian director. It’s a movie-making-fun-of-movies movie, with an aging Hollywood has-been and Italian movie industry serving as the butt of the jokes.