Save your money for something good and enjoyable

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Blistering performances.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It always amazes me that some reviewers can give a movie a really splendid write-up and hail everything about it from the acting to the photography, from the writing to the direction -- and then give it a rating of five out of ten! I know I'm hopeless at maths, but to me a rating of five out of ten implies that the film was either a very mediocre offering or that it had passages of great interest mixed up with scenes that were seriously flawed, or maybe scenes that promised a lot of conflict but ended up as damp squibs -- like the scene in this movie in which the deceased's mistress joins the funeral procession but nothing happens, either positive or negative! And that it why I would normally have given it 5/10. But I've given is 6/10 because there is a scene of a road accident early on in the movie which is the most spectacular I've ever seen -- and as a professional film critic who averaged ten movies a week, I've seen over 20,000 movies in my time. So this one, plagued by scenes that promise a lot but deliver little, gets a six.

Someone gets a call in the middle of the night. Someone finds out that someone else had a heart attack. Confusing ? It gets even more confusing, but then if you have the patience to hang with it, it does start making more sense. Anita (Goldie Hawn) meets some guy (Giancarlo Giannini), the ex lover of her roommate, and catches a ride with him. Much like Chevy Chase's Vacation, everything that can go wrong DOES go wrong. It's a grand adventure of a road trip, and they have some ups and downs along the way. Lots of writers listed on this one, so if it seems a bit disjointed, it has good reason to. Goldie made this one just after Foul Play. Giannini had also been nominated for an Oscar. The trivia says this was going to be a Fellini project, so as odd as it is, its probably more normal than if HE had done it! This was finally directed by Mario Monicelli, who had been nominated for two Oscars for best writing in the 1960s. Overall, its pretty good; just a shame that Sophia Loren couldn't make it way back when. IMDb thinks the run time is 120 minutes, but the DVD from DML is only 95 minutes, so this version is missing a whole chunk. i will try to add this run time to IMDb.

As a huge Goldie Hawn fan, I collect all her films. I spotted this DVD for $4.99 brand new and thought it was a bargain. I have never heard of this title and now I know why. Set in Italy, many of the actor's voices(sans Goldie) are dubbed to English. The plot is lame, the acting is horrible, and only Goldie Hawn gives a good performance(I have yet to see a movie in which Goldie wasn't good). But even the talents of Goldie Hawn cannot save this horrible excuse for a film. If you are a Goldie fan, and feel you need to have this in your collection, don't expect anything special from this 1970's era film. If you are not a Goldie fan, avoid this!

Scrappy Italian comedy is made up of bits and pieces, never quite coming together. Goldie Hawn (vivacious as ever) is an American actress vacationing in Rome who gets mixed up with her friend's married lover (a smoldering Giancarlo Giannini). They have little screwball mishaps and misunderstandings before making hot love in a hammock (although on US prints of the movie, there's an intrusive cut-away just as this scene heats up--perhaps there is an Italian version that Americans aren't 'mature' enough to see?). Hawn is in scatterbrain-mode, and I got a little tired of her whining about her cat, but she has fine moments too and works well with Giancarlo. There's a funny scene near the beginning when GG visits his current lover and finds her undressed--surprised, she grabs the first thing she can find to cover herself, which is of course a poster of herself naked! The editing is sloppy, the sound is fuzzy, and the finale left me scratching my head (is it Giancarlo's fantasy or for real?), but I liked "Lovers And Liars"/"Travels With Anita" for the little glimmers of good humor. Besides, Hawn is always worth a look. ** from ****