After the Fox/Caccia alla volpe

Italy 1966

Dir: Vittorio De Sica

103 mins

Cast: Peter Sellers, Victor Mature, Britt Ekland

Rating: G

If his outings as Inspector Clouseau are the most iconic efforts in the Peter Sellers canon, and his performances in Dr Strangelove and Being There are his best comic-dramatic work, then After The Fox is the unloved black sheep of the star’s best work. An ingenious debunking of the pretentions of international cinema in 1966, it’s a sunny, clever film that mixes neat character comedy with trenchant satire of the film-making process.

... After The Fox is a witty rebuke to the excesses of international cinema, and a lush, accomplished comedy that provokes genuine mirth.

Eddie Harrison, film-authority.com

Peter Sellers is in nimble, lively form in this whacky comedy which, though sometimes strained, has a good comic idea and gives the star plenty of scope for his usual range of impersonations.

Neil Simon’s screenplay is uneven but naturally has a good quota of wit, and Vittorio De Sica’s direction plays throughout for laughs. ...

The filming parody is better in promise than when start of shooting is actually being made, but even these sequences are good for plenty of yocks. Much of this is created by Victor Mature, roped into the film within the film as an aging, corseted film star fighting the wrinkles and still living in the past.

Variety