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| Caprice - 1967 |
Our next film is 1967's "Caprice", a movie about a woman who is a double agent spy for dueling cosmetic companies. Her role, however, drastically changes when she discovers that someone she knows very well within one of the companies has ties to her father's murder and now she knows too much.
The film's cast includes Doris Day, Richard Harris, Edward Mulhare, Ray Walston, Lilia Skala, Irene Tsu, Jack Kruschen, Michael Romanoff, Lisa Seagram, Michael J. Pollard, and Fritz Feld.
In Paris, France, cosmetic company industrial designer named Patricia Foster reads of the murder of an INTERPOL agent in Switzerland. Saddened, she heads off to an appointment.
The appointment is with the owner of a rival cosmetic company. She sells him some plans for a new product. Patricia is caught and fired. Her boss reprimands her, "Don’t you realize the enormity of your crime? You were caught in the act of trying to sell the top-secret plans
for our new roll-on underarm deodorant!"
After being fired, Patricia is hired by the rival company whom she was attempting to sell secrets to. She tells her new boss that she won't be divulging any more secrets to him.
Patricia is courted by her new boss's right hand man, Christopher White. Over the course of their early relationship, Christopher administers a truth serum to Patricia in an effort to find out information. However, she is fully on to his antics and feeds him false info.
We later find that Patricia's firing and subsequent hiring was all a ruse to infiltrate this cosmetic company in order to find out about a secret formula for a new water repellant hairspray. Sitting in a well-appointed private jet, Patricia says to her boss, "Sir Jason, you didn’t
tell me you had a 707-superjet private office." "It's only a charter," he shrugs. (I mean, look at this thing. It's got chandeliers, a giant movie screen, and a travel piano!)
At a lunch in California, Christopher tells Patricia that he is really working for Sir Jason, just like she is. She, however, does not trust him one bit.
And things take a totally different turn when Patricia finds some narcotics involved in the whole cosmetic business.
Over the course of the film, Patricia finally breaks down and tells Christopher her real history. Her father was on the trail of a narcotics ring when he was murdered in Switzerland. She's trying to find out exactly what happened and who is responsible.
So, off they go to Switzerland, where Patricia is able to get her hands on a bottle of that water repellant hairspray.
She's also very interested in the exact spot where the INTERPOL agent was killed. The proprietor of the inn she is staying out points her in the right direction.
There on the slopes of the Swiss Alps, Patricia is pursed by a person in black. To make matters worse, they are actively shooting a gun at her while they zoom across the mountains.
Christopher arrives with help in the nick of time. She goes careening off a sharp precipice when he is able to grab her hand and pull her to safety.
Naturally, Christopher and Patricia fall in love and begin a relationship. But Patricia is determined to find out what happened to her father.
And Patricia can't believe it when she discovers exactly who is responsible for the crime.
Things get pretty dire for Patricia. She's forced to fly solo in a helicopter, and she's got no idea how to land it. She does, though, on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris!
Cast rundown:
Doris Day.....................................Patricia Foster
Richard Harris...............................Christopher White
Edward Mulhare............................Sir Jason Fox
Ray Walston.................................Stuart Clancy
Lilia Skala....................................Madame Piasco
Irene Tsu.....................................Su Ling
Jack Kruschen..............................Matthew Cutter
Michael Romanoff..........................Butler
Lisa Seagram................................Mandy
Michael J. Pollard...........................Barney
Fritz Feld......................................Swiss Innkeeper
And that's all for Caprice. Doris Day named this as one of her least favorite films in her autobiography. She was reading the script when she expressed her dissatisfaction to her husband and manager, Martin Melcher, but her told her that he had already committed her to the project. Richard Harris reportedly hated working on the film so much that he refused to see the finished product. It's definitely not one of the better Doris Day films, but film students today have expressed renewed appreciation for it because of its satire, slapstick comedy, and action sequences.
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