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I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Lady L (1965) ** (out of 4) Lady Louise Lendale (Sophia Loren) recounts her younger years and the relationship she had with two different type of men (Paul Newman, David Niven).LADY L was a box office flop when it was released and it's never really been beloved by fans of any of the three leads or director Peter Ustinov. Later in life Ustinov blamed a lot of different things for the film's failure including the fact that the Loren and Newman apparently didn't get along and the director also said the budget was simply too big for the type of film it was.I actually agree with both of those statements. For starters, the story itself is extremely flat and there's just no energy, no spark or any real point to anything we're watching. Loren and Newman sleepwalk through their roles and I'd agree that there's not an inch of chemistry between the two. The first portion of the film is like a bad comedy but when Niven enters the picture is just becomes boring and flat. I really don't recall too many times where the three leads were as bland as they are here.Another major problem with the film is that it looks terrific but there's no substance to it. Perhaps this is why the director blamed the budget. I'm going to guess that his main focus was on making the picture look like a big budget instead of getting anything better on the page. LADY L certainly didn't destroy the leads careers but at the same time it's easy to see why the film has pretty much been forgotten.

Shortly after winning her 1961 Oscar for her harrowing portrayal of a woman struggling to protect her daughter from the ravages of war-torn occupied Italy during the Second World War (some closest to Loren insist the film is semi-autobiographical) in "Two Women", Loren ably demonstrated to the critics of the world that she could not only handsomely dress a set but could be a force to reckon with as a serious actress. That being said, she was off to the races, figuratively speaking, selecting her next projects, again, "ably" assisted by her producer husband Carlo Ponti ("Doctor Zhivago"). It's not too surprising that she would choose a film in a lighter more comedic vein, for, just as every comic longs to play Shakespeare, every serious actor enjoys slipping on a banana peel every now and then. The ever versatile Peter Ustinov (two time Oscar winner, "Spartacus", "Topkapi") wrote and directed, adapting Romain Gary's novel to the screen with characteristic flare and panache, and, has a minor stint in the film as a befuddled crowned head of some remote principality or other, the target of a would-be assassin's bullet that of her anarchist husband Paul Newman (also, an Oscar winner, "The Color of Money"), and, wooed and romanced by her all too understanding entitled affluent husband (yep, you guessed it, yet another Oscar winner, "Separate Tables") David Niven. Personally, I'm a sucker for sumptuous elegant films and "Lady L" is mounted on fairly lavish scale, albeit, those exteriors and interiors which were obviously filmed on locations elsewhere, as well as, period costumes which are both stunning and ravishing to gawk at especially as worn by the curvaceous Loren.

Blake Edwards' THE PINK PANTHER (1963) not only made an international film superstar of Peter Sellers and created a popular cartoon character but also made star-studded comedy extravaganzas a fashionable commodity in the film industry for the rest of the decade. In retrospect only a handful of these proved to be as successful and as durable and, alas, the film under review here is definitely not one of the lucky few. Frankly, LADY L has been shown so incredibly often on TV in my neck of the woods in the last 20 years or so that I can't believe I had never watched it from beginning to end until now! The credentials were unquestionably promising, even mouth-watering: Sophia Loren and Paul Newman in a Peter Ustinov-directed comedy epic (who even has a cameo as a Bavarian prince) also featuring David Niven, Claude Dauphin, Philippe Noiret, Michel Piccoli, Marcel Dalio and Cecil Parker; indeed, how could it possibly miss? Well, a lame misfire it most certainly turned out to be with only the occasional bright spot provided by (surprisingly enough) Dauphin - as a befuddled but dogged Police Inspector on the trail of anarchist thief Newman (who was never comfortable with comedy and this is no exception) - and, even less frequently, by Noiret as a lecherous Minister of the Interior. Both Piccoli and especially Dalio are criminally underused and even the usually reliable Niven looks bored in his rather thankless role as a dying aristocrat who takes Loren under his wing.Which brings me to Lady L herself: beautiful as she is, I've never been particularly impressed with Loren's acting capabilities (particularly in her international ventures) and since Sophia is the whole show here - metamorphosing from a timid Italian laundress to a ravishing British lady to a cantankerous 80-year old celebrity - the film's success (or lack thereof) is clearly subject to one's impressions of her. Even so, its real death-knell is the sheer fact that, for such a conglomeration of talent, big-budget and comic potential, LADY L is a witless and distinctly unmemorable enterprise. Apparently, the film was originally to be helmed by director George Cukor and was intended for Gina Lollobrigida, Tony Curtis and Sir Ralph Richardson...which I don't think would have improved matters all that much!

This movie is a "bit of fluff" but a very lovely "bit of fluff". The costumes are wonderful and Sophia Loren makes them look even better. Entertaining story told in vignettes about a pretty racy lady who may, or may not, be even racier than intimated. Also, she has a chauffeur to die for. Yum!!!