8/10
Sweet screwball comedy filled with sunshine and stolen Greek treasures
5 February 2007
You'd have to be pretty hard-hearted not to fall for this one: Philippe Noiret and Annie Girardot (reprising their roles from the earlier DEAR INSPECTOR) are a middle-aged French classics professor and his no-nonsense police inspector wife, trying to celebrate their honeymoon in Greece ... and instead winding up chasing the marble hindquarters of a priceless 2,500 year old statue. De Broca (best known for KING OF HEARTS) does an admirable job of updating the timeless Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn screwball formula from the 1930's -- but a better comparison might be something like SILVER STREAK with its mixture of offbeat leads, winsome romance and faux-Hitchcockian thrills. The film's real charm is in its throwaway moments -- at one point the getaway car stops so that someone can mail postcards to the folks back home -- and the marvelous rapport between Noiret and Girardot, playing two decidedly mature romantic leads who aren't too mature for a role in the hay with a crackling fire and the ancient Greek hills in the background. A lovely little movie: Hollywood in style but French in spirit, and made in Greece.
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