For me, this movie had two strengths: 1) Doris's FABULOUS late '60s wardrobe (I would die to have a few of her coats hanging in my closet) and 2) a surprisingly sexy and appealing performance from Richard Harris as the male lead. Having experienced Hawaii and about fifteen minutes of Camelot (at which point I puked and felt it unadvisable to risk my health by watching any more), I have always thought of him as irritating and gross. For some reason, I ate him up in this role, though. The movie thankfully finds a number of opportunities for him to lose his shirt, which is a blessing.
The plot, however, is a mess. Not only does it become impossible to follow who the characters are working for and what they are trying to do, it even becomes difficult to discern what city we are in at any given time (the action veers back and forth between Paris and L.A., with some scenes in Switzerland thrown in and certain sequences on a plane flying God knows where). It mainly held my interest until the stupid ending, which is like a kick in the face to anyone who has devoted an hour-and-a-half of their life to this movie. Halfway through it becomes a whodunit, except with no suspects, and the "resolution" is even less satisfying than you fear it's going to be.
I would also like to have a few serious words with Doris's hair and makeup designers... She looks like a 45-year-old who thinks she's still 20, and it's not a pretty sight. Her wigs are way too light, and her dark eye makeup and layers of false eyelashes border on the grotesque. It's almost astonishing to see her in the shower scene because she looks so natural and charming, and it's quite a contrast to the borderline-Mae-West-in-Myra-Breckinridge look she is going for during the rest of the picture.
I don't know whose idea it was to have Doris go see the movie Caprice starring Doris Day and Richard Harris, and then to have her voice singing the film's title song when she gets in the movie theatre. But it wasn't funny, it was just disconcerting and bizarre. For a minute when they first showed the marquee I thought it was going to turn all meta and reveal that everything up to then had just been scenes from the movie and we would now commence with a story of the "real" Doris Day and Richard Harris. But no such luck. The scene in the movie theatre did at least provide the film with its best performance, by Michael J. Pollard.
Final note... I now have the first two notes of the title song stuck in my head. I can't remember any other parts of it, but I am sure Doris will be singing "Ca-price" in her coy annoying way inside my brain for many days to come.
