Rotten Tomatoes
Cancel Movies Tv shows FanStore News Showtimes

After the Fox

Play trailer Poster for After the Fox Released Sep 8, 1966 1h 43m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
78% Tomatometer 9 Reviews 64% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
In order to receive a fortune in stolen gold bullion, master criminal Aldo "The Fox" Vanucci (Peter Sellers) needs a coastal location. So he poses as a famous movie director, using his drop-off point, a sleepy Italian town, as the "setting" for a new production. But the shrewd plan threatens to come undone thanks to Vanucci's movie-mad sister, Gina Romantica (Britt Ekland), and the fictional production's star: egocentric, nearly forgotten matinee idol Tony Powell (Victor Mature).

Critics Reviews

View All (9) Critics Reviews
Eddie Harrison film-authority.com ...a witty rebuke to the excesses of international cinema, and a lush, accomplished comedy that provokes genuine mirth... Rated: 4/5 Feb 17, 2021 Full Review Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Most of the stabs at satire miss the mark by a wide margin. Rated: C+ Apr 18, 2015 Full Review Frank Swietek One Guy's Opinion Rated: 3/5 Jun 13, 2008 Full Review John Wirt Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA) Not one of the better Peters Sellers comedies, but still a fascinating failure. Rated: 3/5 Oct 14, 2005 Full Review Steve Crum Kansas City Kansan So-so Sellers vehicle has its funny moments. Rated: 3/5 Jan 3, 2005 Full Review Carol Cling Las Vegas Review-Journal Rated: 3/5 Mar 12, 2004 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

View All (93) audience reviews
Maryalice E BINGOLI!! One of my favorite Peter Sellers movies. I watch it just about every time I see it on my cable listing. Peter Sellers is, of course, perfect as Aldo Venucci. Victor Mature does a wonderful self deprecating performance. Aldo's cohorts reminded me of the fumbling, bumbling mafioso from " The gang who couldn't shoot straight" novel. Also found the soundtrack very engaging. If you are a Sellers fan and haven't seen it yet, give it a look see. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/31/24 Full Review Nana f Sellers was certainly a comedic icon, but this movie seemed extremely long, tediously long. The scenes in Italy were enjoyable, but the screenplay, not so much. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 09/01/22 Full Review Audience Member The story of the film is The Fox being a master criminal who escapes prison to help smuggle in a shipment of stolen bullion from Egypt to Italy, and his idea is to pretend to make a love story movie in a small Italian coastal village to get the bullion from the ship into the country without arousing suspicion. The Fox has the additional problem of dealing with his neurotic mother and sister, as well as being watched by law enforcement. The theme of the film is to make fun of the movie industry of the era. Peter Sellers shows off the way he can portray so many various characters as he did in his other films; Victor Mature both mocks his macho image and implies that he still has it despite his age. Numerous directors and other movie cliché's are mocked in the movie as well. Much of the movie's material does not age well; few jokes would make a modern audience laugh, unless they were familiar with older stars and movies. Only recommended for the right audience. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Audience Member Most people comment about Sellers and Eckland but the star fot me is the hasbeen movie star. Here Victor Magure plays a part that I wouldn't say mirrors his career but Mature certainly enjoys sending himself up. Mature knew his limitations and certainly threw himself into the part, never classing himself as an actor but here actually does act. It's an oddity and worth watching for Mature. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member You can definitely feel the writing hand of Neil Simon in After the Fox. It has his brand of witty comedy and also a bit of silly slapstick for added laughs. While the comedy wasn’t always effective in this film, when it worked I was laughing a lot. Peter Sellers is a big reason why the comedy was clicking, because he has a ton of talent and can make even boring scenes funny with the right look or some inflection in his line-reading. In many ways this reminded me of a Blake Edwards film because of the style of jokes and probably because Sellers was delivering them. Unfortunately, I think the movie would have been better served with a director more adept at comedy like Edwards. It’s not that Vittorio De Sica is completely inexperienced with the genre, or that he filmed any of this movie poorly, but there was something that felt missing in the way the film was presented. It seemed the script called for things to get pushed to an even wackier and outlandish place, but it never went there, and they played certain scenes straight that needed a madcap feeling. That being said, I still found many of the elements in After the Fox to be delightful. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a movie where the plot revolves around a fake movie being made in order to cover for something else that is going on, but I liked the way that plot was presented this time. The kind of rambling and nonsensical scenes that we see the protagonist invent on the spot feel like things I’ve seen in real movies. I laughed out loud more than once thinking of real-life directors that I imagine work with this exact kind of insane format that lacks any structure or logic. (Some of them are definitely Italian, too, so that made the setting of this film a bit more humorous.) One of the elements I didn’t love in After the Fox was the family relationship stuff. It felt like a shoddy attempt to create motivation for our main character, and didn’t amount to much in the storyline. There were certainly some jokes that sprung out of the family drama, but it never struck me as vital to the plot. There are no other specifics that I can point to as flaws in After the Fox, but I still felt it was not quite as good as it could have been. I’m certainly thinking about watching it again, and I hope it will click more next time, but for now I’d only call it good and not great. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 08/15/20 Full Review Audience Member There's nothing dreadful about this mid-60s caper, but none of the A-list participants (Sellers, writer Neil Simon, composer Bacharach) is really playing at the top of their game. The slim story has career crook Sellers escaping prison in order to smuggle gold into Italy by pretending to be a famous Italian movie director no-one's heard of. He convinces a vain and rather dim Hollywood heartthrob (Mature) to take part and most of the comedy takes place in the last section by the sea. It was made during Sellers' golden period - What's New Pussycat?, Strangelove, The Party, A Shot in the Dark, etc - but lacks those movies' frenetic comic delirium. Still worth seeing. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/27/23 Full Review Read all reviews
After the Fox

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW

Cast & Crew

Casino Royale 26% 34% Casino Royale Watchlist Cul-de-Sac 83% 78% Cul-de-Sac Watchlist The Pink Panther 89% 78% The Pink Panther Watchlist The Great Race 69% 83% The Great Race Watchlist Sex and the Single Girl 50% 55% Sex and the Single Girl Watchlist Discover more movies and TV shows. View More

Movie Info

Synopsis In order to receive a fortune in stolen gold bullion, master criminal Aldo "The Fox" Vanucci (Peter Sellers) needs a coastal location. So he poses as a famous movie director, using his drop-off point, a sleepy Italian town, as the "setting" for a new production. But the shrewd plan threatens to come undone thanks to Vanucci's movie-mad sister, Gina Romantica (Britt Ekland), and the fictional production's star: egocentric, nearly forgotten matinee idol Tony Powell (Victor Mature).
Director
Vittorio De Sica
Producer
John Bryan
Screenwriter
Neil Simon, Cesar Zavattini
Distributor
United Artists
Production Co
Cinecittà
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Sep 8, 1966, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Jan 2, 2020
Runtime
1h 43m
Sound Mix
Mono
Aspect Ratio
Scope (2.35:1)