Cinema: 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.