I'm in a play reading group and we often watch a movie based on a play we've read when one's available. Similarities are that a group of wealthy Parisian men find that there's oil underground in Paris and want top scatter derricks all over the city to get it. The countess is opposed to the plan. Among the differences are that she does away with all the ____. Still, it's a worthwhile movie with a fabulous cast of characters.

Admired the covert ridiculousness of the first hour -- five extremely wealthy crooks of majestic stature sitting around one of those tiny café tables on a Paris sidewalk, discussing loudly and shamelessly their next plan to screw the public and further enrich themselves by destroying part of the city with oil rigs.It's a witty and well-written scene. Yul Brynner is the leader of the gang and a real narcissist. A rag picker passes by while Brynner is holding forth and he finds some money on the sidewalk. Rag picker: "Someone dropped this money. Is it yours?" Brynner: "I never drop money." Rp: "Well then I guess it isn't yours." Brynner: "It's more mine than yours! (Snatches it out of the rag picker's hand.)Each person at the table, in order to prove he's rotten, must confess to something evil that he did. Oscar Homolka as the German representative, side steps the question, but the phony preacher confesses that, well, he once accepted a rather large donation from an organization "with extreme anti-Semitic views" -- and here the preacher, played by uber-handsome James Gavin, ends with a hilarious smirk combining pleasure, guilt, modestry, and pride. The preacher is there for a reason. The movie descends into something resembling a genuine morality play. Katherine Hepburn is dotty and still lives in a past in which such corruption doesn't exist and everyone is nice to everyone else. But when she must visit the preacher she gets to ask all sorts of semi-philophical questions about religion, making a hash of Christianity.The keen and antic wit remains, though the sparks grow sparser. One of Hepburn's friends -- there are three nuts all together -- is Giuletta Masina, who spends her afternoons in the park sitting on a bench and watching the men visit the pissoir. They all know her and tip their hats. But she's shy and easily embarrassed. Hepburn makes some remark about husbands and is warned, "Don't forget. Our friend is a V-I-R-G-I-N." Hepburn: "She can't be all THAT naive. She has canaries."At a mock trial, the rag picker (Danny Kaye), introduces the three ladies to modern life which, in his view, is profoundly dismal. Tears form in Hepburn's eyes.At that point, I more or less lost interest, but you might not.

Lots of good comment already made except for some confusion over interpreting and understanding allegory. This is one of the best examples. Much has been said about the waste of talent by big name actors in this film. This play gives point to the old adage that there are no secondary parts in a play. This play demanded and used TALENT, hence the outstanding cast of true professionals. I was disappointed that there was no credit or reference made of the musical score. It is excellent. I'd buy a copy if I could find it. This music is haunting and will live with you for a long time. This is one of those movies that makes one wonder why it is not more prominently marketed. Maybe too cerebral?

Every Civics class (are they still teaching Civics in our increasingly more ignorant society?) should watch this and write an essay on it (if they know what one is, or what a subject and predicate is). What a fantastic analogue to today's insane reality, where the news is owned by the corporate giants: Yul Bryneer does a great turn describing how 'sensible' this arrangement is. To see Yul Bryner laughing is a treat in itself, when you have visions of Yul the Outlaw dancing in your head. Of course his evil in this film is far more insidious than any "The Wild Ones" could have envisioned.The Ragpicker's soliloquy by Danny Kaye is sometimes pointed to as the highlight of his career, when he was trivialized as a song and dance man....much as Einstein's political views on the insanity of war were sublimated to his scientific contributions. To watch Margaret Leighton give way to the Ragpicker's depiction of how easily women can be bought (with 'sable and morals'). As the defense lawyer, he almost gets his clients off by describing how he gave to all tax-exempt charities, and built many hospitals for the children who ate the food he grew in his 234 farms. (This will remind you of George Bernard Shaw's lines in "The Countess", in which the Indian muses on the much overlooked fact that those great givers to charity --whose names are etched on hospital walls-- are the same corporate giants who owned the mills that put the patients IN the hospitals.) Of course, we the people are no longer taught the skill of analytical thinking, so we wave the flag and gladly sacrifice our children to the merchants of death via their minions, the Army recruiters. And of course, it's all about oil, just as this illegal immoral invasion of Iraq is. How timely this movie is. No wonder you can't find it in the video stores. No wonder you can't even find reviews of the movie in Leonard Whoever's Reviews Book or the Time-Out English Review Book but in Variety's 2000 Movie Guide. Too dangerous in a time of McCarthyism, of Salem witch trials, where the 1st Amendment is so easily discarded.Naturally, we have a minister, who admits to being involved in some anti-Semitic activities using an atrocious Southern accent. Each of the plotters-- the commissar, the broker, the doctor, the DeGaulle prime minister...all 'confess' to one another their nefarious doings in order to show their loyalty to one another. The fact that Katherine Hepburn gives each of them an 'exclusive contract' to the oil under her mansion in Paris....soon known by all....indicates (according to Yul) that they are all worthy of being business partners, each one totally derelict of the chains of morality.This is a movie you'll see again and again. See it once for the gorgeous scenes of Paris, a city I love. See it again to remind yourself that once there was a Camelot, once there was a citizenry who cared enough, who knew enough about the danger democracy is in within our country to revolt, courting injury from the police stooges. Of course those police didn't have pepper guns or 'non-lethal' stun guns that kill. (Even at a Red Sox over Yankees celebration, by a direct hit, not the political demonstration the guns were bought for).These great actors are topped by Katherine Hepburn..her welling eyes mirroring her emotions, her concern at killing these monsters, her sadness for her lost love (the ragpicker?) that drove her insane. Here's an example of "If you had fore knowledge of the evil Hitler would do to the world, would you have killed him?".Yul Bryner shows also that he was an actor, not just a movie star...but then what enervated these great actors: Charles Boyer, Dame Evans, Guiletta Massina, Margaret Leighton (Betty Davis' nemesis)? It was a labor of love by an international cast which understood the greed, the amorality, the savagery of our 'leaders'. I note that the previous comments also mirror the reviewers' political outlooks in their thumbs down approach: too much truth for them?If ever such a dramatization of our society's plight (also Britain's, by the way) is needed, it is the year 2005-- with amoral incompetence in the saddle of our Executive Cowboy and mirrored by the insipid cowardice or ineffectiveness of our Democrats in Congress. Although you won't find it for less than $69, it's well worth the money.