Caccia alla volpe (After the Fox) is a 1966 Italian comedy film starring Peter Sellers and directed by Vittorio De Sica. The screenplay, however, is in English, by Neil Simon and De Sica's longtime collaborator, Cesare Zavattini.
Despite this array of talent, the film was poorly received when it was released. It has since gained a cult following for its numerous in-jokes skewering pompous directors (including Cecil B. de Mille, John Huston, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni and De Sica himself); vain movie stars; their starstruck audiences; and pretentious film critics.
Plot
The story begins in Cairo with the hijacking of $3 million in gold bullion. The thieves need a way to smuggle the two tons of gold bars into Europe. There are only four master criminals considered able to smuggle the gold: one is French (but so crippled he can barely move his wheelchair); one is Irish (but so nearsighted that he is arrested after trying to hold up a police station instead of a bank); one is German (but so fat he can barely get through a door). The only man cunning enough to outwit Interpol is Aldo Vanucci, also known as The Fox, a master criminal with a talent for disguise. Vanucci poses as an Italian neo-realist director named Federico Fabrizi. He plans to bring the gold ashore in broad daylight as part of a scene in an avant garde film. To give the picture an air of legitimacy, he cons over-the-hill American matinee idol Tony Powell to star in the film, which is blatantly titled The Gold of Cairo. Fabrizi then enlists the starstruck population of a tiny fishing village to unload the shipment. He is caught, and Vanucci's "film" is used as evidence.
Details
This was Neil Simon's first screenplay. At the time, he had three hit shows running on Broadway: Little Me, Barefoot in the Park, and The Odd Couple. Simon has said that he originally wanted to write a spoof of art house films such as Last Year at Marienbad and Michelangelo Antonioni's films, but the story evolved into the idea of a film-within-a-film. Aldo Vanucci brings to mind the fast-talking cons of Phil Silvers and the brilliant dialects of Sid Caesar. This is probably no coincidence since Simon wrote for both on television.
In his 1996 memoir Rewrites, Simon recalled that an agent suggested Peter Sellers for the lead, while Simon preferred casting "an authentic Italian" like Marcello Mastroianni or Vittorio Gassman. Sellers loved the script, however, and it was he who asked Vittorio De Sica to direct.
De Sica (1902-1974) had been an Italian matinee idol before World War II. After the war, he turned to directing and in collaboration with author and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, became one of the founders of the Italian neorealist movement. He won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film four times: Shoeshine, The Bicycle Thief, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.
De Sica's interest in the project surprised Simon, who at first dismissed it as a way for the director to support his gambling habit. But De Sica said he saw a social statement to be made, namely how the pursuit of money corrupts even the arts. Simon believed De Sica also relished the opportunity to take potshots at the Italian film industry. De Sica insisted that Simon collaborate with Cesare Zavattini. Since neither spoke the other's language, the two writers worked through interpreters. "He had very clear, concise, and intelligent comments that I could readily understand and agree with," Simon wrote. Still, Simon worried that inserting social statements into what he considered a broad farce wouldn't do justice to either. Yet After The Fox does touch on themes found in De Sica's earlier work, namely disillusionment and dignity.
Peter Sellers (1925-1980) said that his main reason for doing the film was the chance to work with Vittorio De Sica. Sellers said he relied on De Sica to keep his characterizations on the mark, and they are.
Victor Mature (1913-1999), who had retired five years earlier, was lured back to the screen by the prospect of parodying himself as Tony Powell. Mature was always a self-effacing star who had no delusions about his own work. At the height of his fame he applied for membership in the Los Angeles Country Club, but was told that the club did not accept actors. He replied: "Have you seen my work?" One of Tony's lines must have struck a chord with the then-53 year old actor: "I'd rather get laughs than sympathy." A clip from Mature's 1949 film Easy Living (in which he plays an aging football star) appears in the film.
According to Neil Simon, Sellers demanded that his wife, Britt Ekland, be cast as Gina, the Fox's sister. Ekland married Sellers in 1964. Ekland's looks and accent were wrong for the role, but to keep Sellers happy De Sica acquiesced. Still, Simon recalled, Ekland worked hard on the film. Sellers and Ekland made one other film together, The Bobo (1967). The couple divorced in 1968. Their daughter, Victoria Sellers, who became a Heidi Fleiss girl, was born several months before After The Fox started filming.
Also featured are Akim Tamiroff (as Okra, the mastermind of the heist in Cairo); Martin Balsam (as Tony's agent, Harry); Maria Grazia Buccella (as Okra's voluptuous accomplice); Lydia Brazzi (as Mama Vanucci); and Lando Buzzanca (as the chief of police in Sevalio). Simon recalled that the Italian supporting cast learned their lines phonetically. Tamiroff (1899-1972) had been working on and off for Orson Welles filming Don Quixote, playing Sancho Panza. The film was never finished. Buccella (b. 1940) was a former Miss Italy (1959) and placed third in the Miss Europe pageant. She was considered for the role of Domino in Thunderball (1965). Lydia Brazzi was Rossano Brazzi's wife; she was not an actress.
The budget for the film was $3 million, which included location shooting in the village of Sant' Angelo on Ischia in the Bay of Naples as well as the construction of an exact replica of Rome's most famous street, the Via Veneto, on the Cinecitta lot. The Sevalio sequences were shot during the height of the tourist season. Reportedly the villagers of Sant' Angelo were so busy accommodating tourists that they had no time to appear as extras in the film. The extras were brought in from a neighboring village.
Simon lamented that De Sica insisted on using his own film editors, two middle-aged women who did not speak English and thus did not understand the jokes. The film was later re-cut in London, but Simon believes more funny bits "are lying in a cutting room in Italy."
Simon summed up his opinion of the film: "To give the picture its due, it was funny in spots, innovative in its plot, and was well-intentioned. But a hit picture? Uh-uh...Still today, After the Fox remains a cult favorite."
The film has some kinship to What's New Pussycat?, which was released the previous year and also starred Sellers. That film was the first written by Woody Allen who, like Neil Simon, had been a staff writer for Sid Caesar. Even the advertising tagline on the posters and trailer for After The Fox proclaimed, "You Caught The Pussycat...Now Chase The Fox!". The poster art for both films was illustrated by Frank Frazetta.
Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote the scores and the title songs for both films. The title song "After the Fox", as performed by The Hollies and Sellers, was released as single in September 1966 (b/w "The Fox-Trot", United Artists UP1152) but did not chart.
Influences
References
Rewrites: A Memoir; Author: Neil Simon; ISBN 0684826720
External links
