A delightful comedy, "A Fine Romance," starring Marcello Mastroianni and Julie Andrews, has come to home video after being bypassed by most markets when it was released theatrically last year.
The pairing is enhanced by the direction of Gene Saks ("Lost in Yonkers," "The Odd Couple" and "Barefoot in the Park").Some critics may find reasons why this film did not make the usual rounds of neighborhood theaters. But the legions of Mastroianni and Andrews fans will only wonder why they had to wait until now to see these two screen legends together for the first time.
They add so much brightness to the comic lines and so much class to the others that it's easy to shrug off the slow spots in the story line of this Academy Entertainment release ($89.95, 83 minutes).
"A Fine Romance" played in about 20 markets in the United States, among them Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Miami Beach and eight locations in New York.
If you are among those who once relished Mastroianni and/or Andrews films and waited in lines that often went around the block, you will experience an enjoyment of this sex farce that others won't comprehend.
That joy will not come in the form of the suave Mastroianni's wowing women wherever and whoever they are, as he did his films of the '60s. Nor will Andrews appear to warble in the hills, as she did in "The Sound of Music."
In this film they find what one critic called "a new layout for love," and the pattern is not what the viewer might expect.
Mastroianni, true to form, plays an aging Italian living in Paris who enjoys food, drink and women, not particularly in that order. Andrews portrays the wife of an Englishman, also living in Paris. But it seems that Mastroianni's wife has taken off with Andrews' husband.
The Italian and the Englishwoman meet with hopes of regaining their spouses. He quickly settles for trying to make the pain go away, and the sight of Andrews somehow does that for him. But she's proper British and won't have any part of a dangerous liaison. Not at all - until the re-writing of the book of love sets in.
VIDEO QUESTION
Question: I still see mail-order ads for video descramblers that are supposed to help a person copy movies despite the Macrovision copyguard system. Are they legal?
Answer: Probably not. Macrovision Corp. constantly pursues companies that advertise such devices and sues them for patent infringement. Recently it dropped lawsuits against three companies when the defendants agreed to discontinue sales. Macrovision says the three were responsible for two-thirds of "Macro buster" ads. All told, says Macrovision, it has prevented 17 companies from selling the gadgets.
- Do you have a question you'd like answered? Send your queries to Andy Wickstrom, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Box 8263, Philadelphia, PA 19101.
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- Jack E. Wilkinson (UPI)
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- Jack E. Wilkinson (UPI)