Word: sharif
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MORE THAN A MIRACLE. A beautiful peasant girl (Sophia Loren) brazenly steals a horse from the handsome prince (Omar Sharif), gets herself a job making omelets in the palace kitchen, beats out seven princesses after a dishwashing contest, finally catches the prince and lives happily ever after in this utterly mindless but totally delightful fairy tale...
...that is what happens in an utterly mindless but totally endearing fairy tale, starring Omar Sharif as the prince and Sophia Loren as the girl. It was directed by Francesco Rosi, who is best known for his harrowing bullfight epic, The Moment of Truth. That anybody would bother these days to make so slender and fanciful a film is a miracle in itself; to do it with such a profusion of visual beauty is More than a Miracle. Which, by the way, is its title...
Once upon a time there was a prince with dark, flashing eyes and teeth whiter than white, as handsome as, say, Omar Sharif. He didn't like any of the seven marriageable princesses whom his mother had lined up for him; in fact, he didn't really like much of anything except riding his high-spirited white horse. One day, while cantering across the meadows, his horse threw him and galloped off. When the prince finally caught up with the horse-with the help of a flying monk-it had been appropriated by a peasant girl of such...
Country Calves. These stars, with few exceptions, are Europeans: Michael Caine, Jeanne Moreau, Julie Christie, Maggie Smith, Richard Burton, Oskar Werner, Marcello Mastroianni, Omar Sharif, Anouk Aimee, David Hemmings, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Simone Signoret, Yves Montand, Rita Tushingham, Melina Mercouri, Ingrid Thulin, Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney, Susannah York, Samantha Eggar, Sarah Miles, Terence Stamp, David Warner, Alan Bates?and the Beatles. Hollywood's contribution to the constellation is insignificant: James Coburn, Walter Matthau, Lee Marvin are big boys at the box office now, but for some curious reason, Hollywood has yet to bring on a new and better class...
...villain, O'Toole exhibits the now celebrated twitching lip and glazed stare that some viewers have seen too often-when he played Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Jim, and Becket's king. Omar Sharif, an Egyptian by birth, is German only by permission of the makeup and wardrobe departments, which have vainly tried to Teutonize him with severe pencil lines around the mouth and a crisp military tunic. Only Donald Pleasence, playing one of the generals who stays one jump ahead of the Sharif, infuses his role with a fresh mixture of blood and irony...