Balancing Act

Arabesque. Among the experts consulted during production of this lavish suspense comedy was a British color psychologist, who must have suggested lots of bright red for excitement. Brightness helps a little, but otherwise the entire movie appears to have been assembled in the same mechanical way. Certainly some unimaginative travel agent chose the in-and-around-London locations: Trafalgar Square, the Zoo, the Royal Enclosure at Ascot. A consultant on film fads surely recommended the modish scenes of violence, since the villains pursuing Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck from one landmark to the next seldom just take out a gun and shoot. Instead, Director Stanley Donen (Charade, Indiscreet) assigns a helicopter and a wrecking crane to tasks of mayhem, and later, in a quiet English field, three lumbering farm machines--all, of course, painted in primary hues--turn murderous.

Now and then, a bit of plot sprouts through the film's glossy surfaces, most of it familiar knavery about the assassination of a Middle Eastern Prime Minister. The P.M.'s life depends on Professor Peck's ability to drag himself away from his archaeological tomes and from Double Spy Sophia long enough to decode a message in hieroglyphics. Though Peck looks comfortable enough in the library, he resembles a stand-in for Gary Grant when he seeks refuge in Sophia's shower, fidgeting while the lady purrs: "Call me Yasmin--at least while you're in my bathroom." Boudoir comedy is not Peck's game, and he shows better form trying to explain to an enemy that there is nothing unusual about a folded slip of paper mysteriously afloat in his soup. Sophia, as the secret agent disguised in a $150,000 collection by Dior, fills a decorative role with golden warmth, and cannot be blamed if her superstar presence makes everything else in a film seem secondary.

Director Donen dissipates his cast's effectiveness by having everyone affect a tone of languorous boredom, presumably as a clue that Arabesque belongs in the realm of sophisticated comedy. To mask weaknesses and justify the movie's title, Donen puts his camera to a series of Olympian trials, filming at dizzying angles through, under, or into the reflections of sunglasses, grillwork, optical tools, windshields, mirrors, table tops, television screens and the chromium trim of a Rolls-Royce. The cinematic busywork offers sporadic fun, but also suggests the unsteady posture of a show that always seems about to fall flat on its pretty face.

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