Embassy Pictures
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Lionsgate)
Shirley MacLaine plays seven different women in this anthology of vignettes in the European style. The stories and characters do not overlap, so there is no overarching theme, which is a bit annoying. They range from bittersweet comedy (Shirley as a shy housewife trying to impress her bored husband by dressing up as characters in his novel), to black comedy (Shirley and her lover contemplating suicide but unable to go through with it), with almost all of them incorporating slapstick to some degree. Shirley manages to draw up some interesting characters, but they appear so briefly and then it is on to the next story, and it can be difficult to switch gears so quickly and so often. Peter Sellers appears with his usual brand of stone faced comedy, while Michael Caine says almost nothing for a change in his role as a young man following Shirley and her friend around Paris.
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