Although things have somewhat improved, Americans still basically hate watching foreign films with subtitles. So think of all the wonderful, classic Italian films - from the likes of Fellini, Antonioni, Bertolucci, and Visconti - that were relegated to "art house" cinemas, because subtitles would never be able to draw large enough audiences.
Today I still see viewer reviews on IMDb blasting a film because it has subtitles, is in black-and-white, or is shot in Academy ratio (4:3) as opposed to widescreen.
So in the 1960s, American - and in this case, British - studios made their own "foreign films."
"After the Fox" might have been amusing in 1966 but time has not been at all kind to it. In fact, it was never the hit it was intended to be. Even if it was meant to be a parody of Italian films, it fails. Neil Simon, who wrote the screen play, dismissed it. The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther summed up his review, "It's pretty much of a mess, this picture. Yes, you'd think it was done by amateurs."
It is atrocious that a director of Vittorio De Sica's caliber - the man who made masterpieces such as "Ladri di biciclette" and "Il diardino dei Finzi-Contini - made such a film, filled with non-Italian actors screaming at each other in overly stereotypical Italian accents.
In 2018 it is an unwatchable embarrassment. Even the chameleonic Peter Sellers is reduced to the lowest forms of attempts at humor.
I love film. I have a fairly large collection (over 2000 on DVD) from the 1920s through the latest. For me, the best films of the last two decades (at least) have come from other countries, but for the large part remain unknown in America because of subtitles.
I made it through about 50 minutes of "After the Fox" and simply had to turn it off. There is nothing remotely funny about it today. In fact, because of the stereotypical behavior that reduces a potentially interesting storyline to trash, I think it would be the stuff of which inspires protests. Think of it as the Italian equivalent of blackface, or casting Asian characters with Americans in makeup.
Don't bother with this sad flop in the 21st century unless you have to see all the films of Sellers and De Sica, even at their worst.
Today I still see viewer reviews on IMDb blasting a film because it has subtitles, is in black-and-white, or is shot in Academy ratio (4:3) as opposed to widescreen.
So in the 1960s, American - and in this case, British - studios made their own "foreign films."
"After the Fox" might have been amusing in 1966 but time has not been at all kind to it. In fact, it was never the hit it was intended to be. Even if it was meant to be a parody of Italian films, it fails. Neil Simon, who wrote the screen play, dismissed it. The New York Times critic Bosley Crowther summed up his review, "It's pretty much of a mess, this picture. Yes, you'd think it was done by amateurs."
It is atrocious that a director of Vittorio De Sica's caliber - the man who made masterpieces such as "Ladri di biciclette" and "Il diardino dei Finzi-Contini - made such a film, filled with non-Italian actors screaming at each other in overly stereotypical Italian accents.
In 2018 it is an unwatchable embarrassment. Even the chameleonic Peter Sellers is reduced to the lowest forms of attempts at humor.
I love film. I have a fairly large collection (over 2000 on DVD) from the 1920s through the latest. For me, the best films of the last two decades (at least) have come from other countries, but for the large part remain unknown in America because of subtitles.
I made it through about 50 minutes of "After the Fox" and simply had to turn it off. There is nothing remotely funny about it today. In fact, because of the stereotypical behavior that reduces a potentially interesting storyline to trash, I think it would be the stuff of which inspires protests. Think of it as the Italian equivalent of blackface, or casting Asian characters with Americans in makeup.
Don't bother with this sad flop in the 21st century unless you have to see all the films of Sellers and De Sica, even at their worst.