Absentee Adultery

Come September (Universal-International) sometimes gets its laughs by what might be called farce majeure, but on the whole it gives a pleasantly wacky new twist to the ancient game of belling the wolf. The wolf of the moment is an American millionaire (Rock Hudson) who commits what might be called absentee adultery with his Italian girl friend (Gina Lollobrigida). Eleven months of the year he is away on business. Come September, he meets her at his palatial villa on the Italian Riviera, and for a month they live luxuriously in sin and sun.

But not this time. The lovers arrive a month early, and instead of discovering la dolce vita, they find "La Dolce Vista." Seems that every year while Rock's away, his butler (Walter Slezak) turns the villa into a hotel of that name, charges all the traffic will bear, and is obviously getting rich quick on the grift. Outraged, Rock fires the butler, but it's just too late in the day to evict his tenants, a busload of U.S. college girls on their first trip to Europe. So they stay the night, and Rock, fixed by the basilisk eye of the tour mother (Brenda de Banzie), is forced to let Gina sleep alone.

Next morning, leering happily as he watches the old biddy leave, Rock slips into his sexiest robe and pops a champagne cork, dreaming of Gina. But the cork rolls under the tour mother's feet and she falls, dislocating her hip. Rock, to his popeyed horror, is forced to chaperon the girls until the old bag gets better. Another night without Gina! And another and another, till at last the poor wolf is, howling for a marriage license.

Most of the jokes were old when Plautus first put them on wax. She: "Four boys and six girls. There's safety in numbers." He: "Not if they divide and multiply." But the script (by Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin) keeps the gags coming so fast that the worst ones are gone before they can be recognized. Unhappily, Actor Hudson will never be a comedian--it is easier to carbonate lead than to make Rock fizz--and Actress Lollobrigida will never be a very good one. Slezak and De Banzie are the show savers, and Director Robert (The Rat Race) Mulligan also has a bit of luck in Joel Grey, a weirdly talented man of 28 who actually milks a laugh from the following line: "I feel as though I were 92." Possibly because he looks as though he were 12.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.