Admired the covert ridiculousness of the first hour -- five extremely wealthy crooks of majestic stature sitting around one of those tiny café tables on a Paris sidewalk, discussing loudly and shamelessly their next plan to screw the public and further enrich themselves by destroying part of the city with oil rigs.
It's a witty and well-written scene. Yul Brynner is the leader of the gang and a real narcissist. A rag picker passes by while Brynner is holding forth and he finds some money on the sidewalk. Rag picker: "Someone dropped this money. Is it yours?" Brynner: "I never drop money." Rp: "Well then I guess it isn't yours." Brynner: "It's more mine than yours! (Snatches it out of the rag picker's hand.)
Each person at the table, in order to prove he's rotten, must confess to something evil that he did. Oscar Homolka as the German representative, side steps the question, but the phony preacher confesses that, well, he once accepted a rather large donation from an organization "with extreme anti-Semitic views" -- and here the preacher, played by uber-handsome James Gavin, ends with a hilarious smirk combining pleasure, guilt, modestry, and pride.
The preacher is there for a reason. The movie descends into something resembling a genuine morality play. Katherine Hepburn is dotty and still lives in a past in which such corruption doesn't exist and everyone is nice to everyone else. But when she must visit the preacher she gets to ask all sorts of semi-philophical questions about religion, making a hash of Christianity.
The keen and antic wit remains, though the sparks grow sparser. One of Hepburn's friends -- there are three nuts all together -- is Giuletta Masina, who spends her afternoons in the park sitting on a bench and watching the men visit the pissoir. They all know her and tip their hats. But she's shy and easily embarrassed. Hepburn makes some remark about husbands and is warned, "Don't forget. Our friend is a V-I-R-G-I-N." Hepburn: "She can't be all THAT naive. She has canaries."
At a mock trial, the rag picker (Danny Kaye), introduces the three ladies to modern life which, in his view, is profoundly dismal. Tears form in Hepburn's eyes.
At that point, I more or less lost interest, but you might not.
It's a witty and well-written scene. Yul Brynner is the leader of the gang and a real narcissist. A rag picker passes by while Brynner is holding forth and he finds some money on the sidewalk. Rag picker: "Someone dropped this money. Is it yours?" Brynner: "I never drop money." Rp: "Well then I guess it isn't yours." Brynner: "It's more mine than yours! (Snatches it out of the rag picker's hand.)
Each person at the table, in order to prove he's rotten, must confess to something evil that he did. Oscar Homolka as the German representative, side steps the question, but the phony preacher confesses that, well, he once accepted a rather large donation from an organization "with extreme anti-Semitic views" -- and here the preacher, played by uber-handsome James Gavin, ends with a hilarious smirk combining pleasure, guilt, modestry, and pride.
The preacher is there for a reason. The movie descends into something resembling a genuine morality play. Katherine Hepburn is dotty and still lives in a past in which such corruption doesn't exist and everyone is nice to everyone else. But when she must visit the preacher she gets to ask all sorts of semi-philophical questions about religion, making a hash of Christianity.
The keen and antic wit remains, though the sparks grow sparser. One of Hepburn's friends -- there are three nuts all together -- is Giuletta Masina, who spends her afternoons in the park sitting on a bench and watching the men visit the pissoir. They all know her and tip their hats. But she's shy and easily embarrassed. Hepburn makes some remark about husbands and is warned, "Don't forget. Our friend is a V-I-R-G-I-N." Hepburn: "She can't be all THAT naive. She has canaries."
At a mock trial, the rag picker (Danny Kaye), introduces the three ladies to modern life which, in his view, is profoundly dismal. Tears form in Hepburn's eyes.
At that point, I more or less lost interest, but you might not.