The Millionairess Film Review

This British production from the very English director, Anthony Asquith (his father had been a Prime Minister) was a large hit in England and I can't for the life of me understand why. Not that it is terrible or painful, but it just sort of lies there waiting for some life to be breathed into it. It is harmless like a housecat and as exciting. It is based on a George Bernard Shaw play (Asquith had directed the much superior Shaw's Pygmalion over twenty years previously with Leslie Howard) and social messages run through the film about wealth, ethics, capitalism, social class that may have resonated with the British audience back then and in truth should still today but the messages are so watered down by the stars that I can't imagine much of it sticking. If filmed with a bit more realism, it might have been a nice fit into the English Kitchen Sink genre during the same period - but it is much too fluffy for that. It drowns in a collection of stunning hats and gorgeous outfits all worn by the equally gorgeous Sophia Loren.

Loren had broken out of Italian films with a few solid films with older Hollywood actors - Cary Grant in Houseboat, Clark Gable in It Started in Naples, Alan Ladd in Boy on a Dolphin, Anthony Quinn in Heller in Pink Tights - and was in danger of getting stuck like Audrey Hepburn with much older male co-stars - a common device in Hollywood at the time with their great male stars of the 1930s and 40s getting up there in years but not willing to match up with actresses their own age. I can't even begin to say how breathtaking her beauty is at this time - there are moments in this film with close-ups of her 26-year old face that just do you in. Here they match her up with someone in her age bracket - the 35-year-old Peter Sellers. She is clearly the star of the film - an international film star while Sellers was still primarily only acting in English productions - some well-known ones such as The Lady Killers and his multiple roles in The Mouse That Roared but it wasn't till a few years later with The Pink Panther and Dr. Strangelove that he broke through in America. As he was to do often in his career, he took on a different ethnic role - an Indian from Calcutta - something he did to much more success a few years later in The Party - a film now hated by many but it was a regular viewing in our family for years having lived in India. We would be cancelled today.

Loren as Epifania has inherited millions from her recently dead father. She is privileged and loves being rich and having servants waiting on her hand and foot and also a Board of Directors overseeing her money and dependent on her. Only one problem - in his will, her father stipulated that she could only marry a man if he could turn 500 pounds into 15,000 pounds in three weeks. She did that for her current husband by cheating but he turns out to be a bit of a swine. In an attempt to kill herself by jumping off a bridge she meets an Indian doctor rowing a boat but who rows right by her. She is impressed by this and nothing she can do seems to interest him. He runs a small clinic to help the poor and is uninterested in money or fame or even God help us, Sophia Loren. At least for a while. The romance has no sparks and Sellers is unusually toned down to boring. But damn, Sophia Loren is magnificent. And off-screen Sellers became totally infatuated with her and told his wife and children that he was in love with Sophia.