I used to really like this movie, and resented when A Fish Called Wanda pilfered most of it. But on this viewing nothing really stood out. For the life of me, I can't imagine what I thought was funny when I first saw it back in the 70s. There's really only some mild cleverness here and there. It's merits are better enjoyed in a first viewing. The giddy race down the Eiffel Tower still offers a few chuckles and is pretty amazingly assembled from only foreground items and rear-screen footage. The photography around London is nice. But for a short movie, it feels very padded in the final half an hour. It's a very long 57 minutes until you get to the endless sequence about getting on a ship leaving Paris. Then there's a long pointless chase around London. You could toss about 20 minutes of it away nowadays.
A special note on the DVD: The DVD menu is a model of understatement, and admirably utilitarian. You just pan to another area on an imposing brick wall every time you click something. No idiot graphic designer mucked things up giving away a major plot point or set piece (by sticking footage in the menu to make their own work look good. DVD menus these days are otherwise just pathetic.
A special note on the DVD: The DVD menu is a model of understatement, and admirably utilitarian. You just pan to another area on an imposing brick wall every time you click something. No idiot graphic designer mucked things up giving away a major plot point or set piece (by sticking footage in the menu to make their own work look good. DVD menus these days are otherwise just pathetic.