27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another Ustinov classic, November 27, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Hot Millions [VHS] (VHS Tape)
If you like character acting at its very finest, then watch this movie. Peter Ustinov here builds on the sly but endearing crook persona he won Oscars for in Spartacus and Topkapi. While the characters in those films are expressions of Ustinov's great abilities in making sleazy characters sympathetic, this film goes beyond the slightly over-the-top characterisations of those films to present a fully-rounded character in the context of a credible and somewhat touching love story. This is particularly remarkable because Hot Millions is a light and airy 60s caper film. The scenes between Ustinov and Maggie Smith are brilliant, exhibiting a humourous warmth all too little seen in films, and there is great comedy generated by the presence of Karl Malden and Bob Newhart. Nice score and tight direction too. In my opinion, one of the very best mainstream movies of the late 60s, and one which gives renewed pleasure on each viewing.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marvelous, Just Marvelous, December 21, 2005
This review is from: Hot Millions [VHS] (VHS Tape)
They mostly don't make films like this any more, and more's the pity.
Sir Peter Ustinov and Dame Maggie Smith have a marvellous chemistry, he as a charming embezzler/con man, she as a total disaster of a would-be "career girl".
As the film opens, Marcus Pendleton (Ustinov) is just getting out of gaol; the prison governor counsels him that he'd better go straight; computers are making it impossible to get away with his style of crime any more (that's how they got him this time), and he's getting too old for another spell in quod.
He agrees wholeheartedly.
So wholeheartedly that, determinig that Britain's foremost computer-anti-crime expert, Ceasar Smith (Robert Morley), is an avid lepidopterist, he lures him away to the Amazon on a wild butterfly chase... and takes his place, studying computers the while. (As daunting as they semed, computers were a lot less complex in those days.)
Hired by an American conglomerate as head of computer security for their British operations, he is in a perfect position to, as it were, hunt with the hounds and run with the fox.
By slipping one piece of bogus data into the computer, he lays the basis of a pyramind scheme that will net, literally, millions. (And remember, this was a time when the villains in Bond movies still hadn't learnt the word "billion".)
Enter Patty Terwilliger, living in the flat next to his, and a total disaster in terms of surviving the Real World -- as an example of the sort of disasters that invariably befall her, she gets a job as an omnibus conductor... and the 'bus drives away and leaves her behind.
He meets her, and, at first, simply wants to help her get on. He arranges her a job as his secretary, figuring that she can't have too much trouble there, right?
Did you ever see what happens when an old-fashioned carbon/film typewriter riboon escapes in the office?
Well, nothing propinks like propinquity, and soon they fall in love.
One of the American execs (Bob Newhart) has a bit of feeling for her, and a distrust of "Ceasar".
Eventualy, of course, they wind up on the run, arriving in Brazil (offering, as it does, a large amount of no extradition treaties).
The execs (Newhart and Karl Malden) come after them, to negotiate some sort of deal with "Smith".
(There are two sequences at Brazlian Customs, featuring Cesar Romero in a cameo appearance, that are absolutely hilarious. One involves a gladstone bag full of large-denomination notes in five or six currencies, one involves a jar of instant coffee...)
And the end is a nice little twist to give it all a happy ending.
This is a film solidly in the tradition of the "Ealing" comedies starring Alec Guinness, particuarly "The Lavendar Hill Mob";it's veryvery funny, and it deserves to be on DVD.
Buy it anyway; i;m sure your VHS machine still works.
(I was inspired to hunt up this film here on Amazon (i forst saw it when it was new) and review it after reading an essay by Francois Trufautt on Max Ophul's "Lola Montez", in which he praised Ustinov highly...)
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
This one has numerous reports of being defective, December 10, 2009
This is a Warner Archive product. That means it is a manufactured-on-demand DVD-R. There have been numerous reports of this particular film having the problem of "the purple ring of death". Always carefully inspect your Warner Archive DVD-Rs as soon as you get them. If you see this purple ring, your DVD-R will not play in any player. If you buy the product new, either from an authorized retailer or from Warner Brothers, you can get a replacement disc. However, if you buy this one used that may or may not be the case. Warner Brothers had so much trouble with so many copies of this particular film that they actually took it out of production for a while. I'm not sure if it is back up for sale again on their site, but for the first ninety days after release they are the only authorized dealers of these discs.
Just keep this in mind before you make such an expensive purchase. As for the film, it is very much worth having. Peter Ustinov is simply wonderful as a computer age thief, and I highly recommmend the film itself.
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