La congiuntura

Perhaps only Joan Collins could get away with announcing that she’d “never been kissed by a man who might be Pope one day!”? Well, believe it or not, that works on the playboy Prince “Giuliano” (Vittorio Gassman) as he has fallen hook, line and sinker for visiting Brit “Jane”. What he doesn’t realise, though, is that she is merely using this hapless gent, his very stylish convertible Mercedes Benz and it’s diplomatic number plate to help her true beau smuggle $1 million into Switzerland from Italy. Along the way through the picturesque scenery, however, her cunning plan starts to come predictably unstuck as she begins to take a little bit of a shine to her charismatic and debonair travelling companion. When they do finally make it to their destination, where “Sandro” (Jacques Bergerac) is waiting then there are misunderstandings galore, swiftly followed by fisticuffs, furniture fights and even some nimble acrobatics. To be perfectly honest, Collins brings very little to this light-hearted affair leaving Gassman to do virtually all the heavy lifting. At one point when he is reduced to hitchhiking to retrieve his stylish saloon, he encounters an elderly countess-type which finally explained to me just what the point of those carefully sculpted symbols at the front of your car bonnet are actually for. Ingenious. It does labour the joke a bit towards the overly extended conclusion, but it’s still quite good fun along the way.