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After the Fox

After the Fox
After the fox544.jpg
Theatrical release poster by Frank Frazetta
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Produced by John Bryan
Written by Neil Simon
Cesare Zavattini
Starring Peter Sellers
Britt Ekland
Lydia Brazzi
Paolo Stoppa
Victor Mature
Tino Buazzelli
Vittorio De Sica
Music by Burt Bacharach
Piero Piccioni
Cinematography Leonida Barboni
Edited by Russell Lloyd
Distributed by Delgate / Nancy Enterprises
United Artists
Release date
1966 (1966)
Running time
103 min
Country Italy
United Kingdom
Language English
Italian
Box office $2,296,970 (rentals)

After the Fox (Italian: Caccia alla volpe) is a 1966 British–Italian comedy film directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Peter Sellers, Victor Mature and Britt Ekland. The screenplay is in English, by Neil Simon and De Sica's longtime collaborator Cesare Zavattini.

Despite its notable credits, the film was poorly received when it was released. It has since gained a cult following for its numerous in-jokes skewering pompous directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, John Huston (who appears briefly in the movie, portraying Moses for De Sica in a film shoot within the film), Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, and De Sica himself, vain film stars, their starstruck audiences, and pretentious film critics. The film was remade in 2010 in Hindi as Tees Maar Khan.

The story begins outside Cairo where Okra (Akim Tamiroff), using a bikini-clad accomplice (Maria Grazia Buccella) as a distraction, hijacks $3 million in gold bullion. The thieves need a way to smuggle the two tons of gold bars into Europe. There are only four master criminals considered capable of smuggling the gold, but each is ruled out: an Frenchman is so crippled that he can barely move his wheelchair; an Irishman is so nearsighted that he is arrested after trying to hold up a police station instead of a bank; a German is so fat he can barely get through a door; and an Italian, Aldo Vanucci (Peter Sellers), also known as The Fox, a master criminal with a talent for disguise, is in prison.

Vanucci knows about the smuggling contract but is reluctant to accept it because he does not want to disgrace his mother and young sister, Gina (Britt Ekland). However, when his three sidekicks inform him that Gina has grown up and does not always come home after school, an enraged, over-protective Vanucci vows to escape. He succeeds by impersonating the prison doctor and convincing the guards that Vanucci has tied him up and escaped. The guards capture the real doctor and bring him face to face with Vanucci, who flees with the aid of his gang. Vanucci returns home where his mother tells him that Gina is working on the Via Veneto. Vanucci takes this to mean that Gina is a prostitute. Disguised as a priest, Aldo sees Gina, who is provocatively dressed, flirting and kissing a fat, middle-aged man. Aldo attacks the man, but it turns out that Gina, who aspires to be a movie star, is merely acting in a low-budget film. Aldo’s actions cost her the role, but he realizes that the smuggling job will make his family’s life better. He makes contact with Okra and agrees to smuggle the gold into Italy for half of the take. Meanwhile, two policemen are constantly on Vanucci’s trail, and he uses several disguises and tricks to throw them off. After seeing a crowd mob over-the-hill American matinee idol Tony Powell (Victor Mature), it strikes Vanucci that movie stars and film crews are idolized and have free rein in society. This idea forms the basis of his master plan.


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