Movies at Home: Rules Don't Apply, Arabesque and Scribe

 

With an excellent cast it should have been good. But without a decent script or director they were lost. Yes, it was beautiful to look at and could have been an intelligent drama. But it was just boring.

Arabesque was director Stanley Donen's follow up to the highly successful Charade. Unfortunately it was not in the same class despite two heavyweight stars in Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren. It seemed that the English locations were more important than the screenplay. The inner Canterbury Quad of St john's college Oxford, a tiny street off Pall Mall, Regent's park Zoo, Trafalgar Square courtesy of a camera at the top of  Nelson's Column, British Museum, Waterloo Station, and Royal Ascott, See what I mean?  But it was great to look at despite the predictable plot. 

Now Scribe (alternatively called The Eavesdropper) did have a great plot. Lead actor Francois Cluvet was excellent, having remembered him from Tell no One. Full of sinister conversations and political machinations, it was only let down by a muddled ending when our too nice hero joins in with the violence.