So much average

Purely Joyful Movie!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

ARABESQUE is Stanley Donen's follow-up to his own CHARADE, which was a breezy spy comedy featuring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. This one feels very much like CHARADE, and merely recasts the central roles in the form of Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. Peck pays a professor working at a British university who is tasked with deciphering some hieroglyphics only to be drawn into a plot involving a ruthless mastermind who commits murder to further his aims.Peck has always been one of my very favourite stars and he's a delight here as a slightly buffoonish character. He's very much in the Grant mould, but without the slight air of smugness that Grant sometimes has. And Sophia Loren, as his rival/love interest, is simply stunning and outdoes Hepburn with ease. The plot is fast-paced and consistently funny, mixing up the tropes ably and delivering some great and unique set-pieces; the shower scene in particular manages to be racy, risqué, endearing, and very, very humorous. Only a few scenes, like the bit where Peck is drunk on truth serum, fall foul. Yes, ARABESQUE is dated, but endearingly so, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When James Bond was so successful, a lot of folks went to the London studios are tried to make their own film. This one enlisted a top director, Stanley Roper (kidding), Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Christian Dior, and the MGM British Unit of the 1960's.The best features of this film - the cast, the opening and closing credits and the scenery. The worst part is the script. I mean if your going to try and clone James Bond, at least find someone who can write a good script to do so. If your going to fake Hitchcock, well even Hitch knew the writing was super important in his work. Most clever touch in the film - Peck using a wooden ladder to take down the bad guys helicopter. Worst touch, the total insane crazy plot and the way the sequencing was done. It was kind of cool seeing a bad guy blast open a fish tank in an aquarium but that touch could have been done more effectively.Sometimes, imitation of success does not really come off. The cast looks like they have fun, and I envy Peck being able to look at Loren nude and taking a shower in front of him. Could this have been better, yes and 007 did so. Legend has it Peck was supposed to be Cary Grant. I think in 1966 that Peck was the better option. He can even make bad lines sound like they have real authority.

is it good ? is it bad ? really, I do not know. the presence of Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck, precise pieces from Hitchcock style, the romance crumbs and the ball of adventures does a not boring result. sure, it can be version for Charade or soft Bond slice but, in fact, it remains itself. charming, not always credible, a little crazy, with few nice exotic drops, chain of masks and noble feelings, smart and ironic, pink and serious, authentic show from good times. it is a kind of meeting with an old friend. a delight and entertainment like cherry jam from a lost age. so, final verdict - it is really inspired story. is it enough ?

***SPOILERS*** Gregory Peck as visiting American Oxford language professor David Pollock has his hand full chasing that fast filly and mystery woman Yasmin Azir, Sophia Loren,all over London and it's surroundings. That as Pollock is being chased by Arab billionaire oil man Bashraavi's, Alan Badel, goons who need Prof. Pollock to decipher an urgent massage,in ancient Hittite hieroglyphs, that can determine the course of the future of all of mankind. Things are doubly difficult for Peck in the film in that he's recovering from falling off a horse and can barley walk much run in all his action scenes that must have made things a living hell for him in the film.It's oil rich unnamed Middle Eastern nation's Prime Minister Yossef Kasim's, Kieron Moor, plan to exclusively use US & UK oil tankers to carry his oil reserves that has Bashraavi want to have him knocked off in that it's cutting into his mega billions of dollars in oil profits! Pollock after being kidnapped, while jogging, by PM Kasin's men and told how important the ancient massage is later is hired by Bashraavi to decode it. That without Bashraavi knowing that he's really working for his enemy Prime Minister Yosseff Kasim. It's when the hot blooded Arabian princess Yasmin , who's mansion Bashraavi is staying at while in London, shows up unexpectedly that Pollock forgets what his job is and focuses all of his attention on her! That with him not quite knowing on who's side Yasmin is on his or her house-mate the oily and murderous Arab oil magnet Bashraavi!With Pollock knowing that his life depends on him not decoding the secret message and that once he does decode it it's curtains, in Bashraavi finding out what it says, for him all he can do is run, together with Yasmin, for his life until the calvary or Scotland Yard comes to his rescue. It's during that time on the run Pollock is framed by one of Bashraavi's goons Slone, John Meravile,in a murder at the Ascot Race Track making him a fugitive from the law as well as from Bashraavi! Still hooked on the beautiful Yasmin Pollock isn't quite sure, with all the lies she'll told him, just whom she's working for and is even willing, if she's working for Bashraavi, to end up dying in her arms even if she's the one who does him in.****SPOILERS**** it's to Pollock's great relief that Yasmin in fact turns out to be a secret agent or spy for Prime Minister Kasim! But by then it's almost too late for him with the Prime Minster getting blasted by one of his bodyguards after Pollock & Yasmin save him from an assassins bullet when he landed at the London airport! But the big surprise comes later when we realize that there's a lot more that's going on in the movie that meets the eye. Which leads to the explosive climax on the bridge to nowhere that turned out to be Bashraavi and his band of goons final resting place!