During the month of August, Turner Classic Movies aired their annual “Summer under the Stars” where they air one specific actor or actress’s films for each day of that month. Sophia Loren, the beautiful actress from Italy, was one of their featured stars so I decided to tivo one of her films that I had never seen before. I chose 1966’s spy thriller film, Arabesque. Her co-star, was the incomparable Gregory Peck. When I pulled up the film this week and started watching it, child #3, commuter college student, happened to be home and as he saw Peck on the screen, he exclaimed, “It’s Atticus!” remembering Peck’s Academy Award winning turn as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. I laughed and said that Peck was playing a far different character than Atticus in Arabesque.
Peck plays Professor David Pollack, a visiting American professor teaching at Oxford University, specializing in hieroglyphics. One of his respected and older colleagues is called away for an eye check-up and Peck fills in for this Professor, Dr. Ragheeb. The eye exam, unknown to Dr. Ragheeb, is conducted by a Mr. Sloane, who is really an undercover agent. During the eye exam, Sloane places dilating drops into Dr. Ragheeb’s eyes and he suddenly dies in much agony! ( This scene made me think that Arabesque did for eye doctors what the movie Marathon Man did for dentists!! ) Dr. Ragheeb had hidden in his eyeglasses a hieroglyph-coded message and Sloane snatches it.
Sloane, who is working for Arab shipping leader Nejim Beshraavi, contacts Professor Pollack to invite him to come to Beshraavi’s digs in London and translate the hieroglyph. Pollack tells Sloane that he’s not interested but when he is contacted by Middle Eastern Prime Minister Hassan Jena to accept Sloane’s invitation, Pollack agrees as he has a high opinion of Prime Minister Jena. Jena tells Pollack that Beshraavi is up to something and whatever it is it might be a threat to his country’s national security.
Pollack arrives at Beshraavi’s house and is told that he can’t leave until the translation of the hieroglyph is done. As Pollack looks around the sumptious library/den where he’s been left to begin working on the translation, in saunters the beautiful Sophia Loren, playing Yasmin Azir. It turns out that she owns the house, Beshraavi is her boyfriend, and could Pollack please help her zip up her nighty?? Pollack is immediately attracted to Yasmin but he also learns that Beshraavi is very jealous of any other man who might take Yasmin’s affections away from him so Pollack knows he has to tread carefully where Yasmin is concerned.
During a dinner at Yasmin’s that night, she is able to slip Pollack a newspaper clipping about Dr. Ragheeb’s death. Yasmin is able to excuse herself from the dinner stating that she has a splitting headache. Pollack excuses himself from the dinner stating that he needs to get back to his translating work. Another dinner guest tells Beshraavi that in 2 days Prime Minister Jena is expected to sign a treaty that will have negative effects on Beshraavi’s shipping business. Beshraavi doesn’t seem to be too worried about this fact.
Fun begins to ensue as Pollack meets Yasmin in her bedroom to find out what she knows about Dr. Ragheeb’s death. Yasmin tells Pollack that Beshraavi ordered Ragheeb’s death to get that hieroglyph and that as soon as it’s translated, he’ll order Pollack’s death! A knock at the door reveals that Beshraavi is there wanting to see Yasmin! She tells Pollack to hide in her shower. Then she quickly puts on her robe and tells Beshraavi to come in, that she is about to take a shower. He tells her to go ahead, he’ll wait there for her to finish this task. With no choice presented to Yasmin, she takes her shower, much to Pollack’s surprise and amusement. She keeps her backside to him(we don’t see it but it’s implied) and Pollack stays huddled at the far end of the shower. It’s an incredibly huge shower-6-7 people could stand in it and have a cocktail party!
With chase scenes that remind one of scenes from North by Northwest, Sabotage, and an assassination plot like the one in The Man Who Knew Too Much , Arabesque is a fast, fun, spy thriller. Peck, as Pollack, is great as the somewhat nerdy, cautious professor who gets caught up in this international espionage mess. Loren, is gorgeous, smart, and a pawn of Beshraavi and of another spy. She seemingly double-crosses Pollack, but it does get explained as to why she would do such a thing and she and Pollack are cute as they obviously are falling for one another. The ending scene, in a tiny boat, even seemed to me a bit of a nod to the end of the James Bond movie, Dr. No. Loren also wears some gorgeous clothes in this film, made by Christian Dior and she got to keep all of them after the film was finished. What a nice perk!
Alan Badel plays Neshraavi. I wasn’t familiar with his work at all and he wears dark sunglasses throughout the entire movie; I at first thought he was Peter Sellers! Badel is good as the main villain of the film, at first charming, then menacing. A bit of a creepiness in the way he hangs around Yasmin, but wouldn’t we expect that out of the villain? The rest of the cast gives fine performances too: Kieron Moore as Yussef, John Merivale as Sloane, Duncan Lamont as Webster, Carl Duering as Prime Minister Jena, and George Coulouris as Dr. Ragheeb.
With opening credits displayed over splashes and wild bending rays of colors, music by Henry Mancini, I knew Arabesque was going to be an enjoyable ride and it was. Very creative cinematography by Christopher Challis-watch the scene when Sophia descends a staircase and we see her from a sideview, through the myriad of crystals hanging from a chandelier. Or poor Pollack’s drugged out pov when he’s been forcibly given a truth serum that doesn’t give another set of baddies the answers they want. Very interesting shots to view and they caused my son to utter, “Atticus!” again! Produced and directed by Stanley Donen, with screenplay by three writers: Pierre Marton, Julian Mitchell, and Stanley Price. Based on the book The Cipher, by Alex Gordon.
Arabesque is available to purchase through Amazon on a regular dvd; not a blu ray issue. It’s available through Shop TCM in a 5 dvd set of Gregory Peck films, and here’s a trailer that was shown back in 1966 for the film courtesy of Youtube.
For a fast-paced spy thriller with gorgeous Sophia Loren and Gregory Peck in a different role than a fatherly, lawyer type, check out Arabesque!
17 Sep
Son’s Introduction to Idiocy 101 at College
Posted by jennifromrollamo in Social Commentary. Tagged: Athens, Ohio, Ohio University. 4 comments
Our oldest son decided to serve our country in the Fall of 2009. After his high school graduation, he was whisked away in early August with other young people who had decided to join the USMC. After his successful 4 years in the military were finished, he enrolled in college via the Post 911 GI Bill and is now a freshman at Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio.
We skype with him pretty much every Sunday afternoon, an NFL game usually playing in the background. So far, he’s spent most of his time studying, working part-time at the on campus Veteran’s Affairs office, and hanging out with extended relatives from his Dad’s side of the family. This past Sunday he asked, “Oh! Have you heard about the latest scandal at OU’s campus?” We hadn’t heard about the latest scandal. Suffice it to say, it was a “Welcome to Idiocy 101”, college-style, for our son.
Two weeks ago, the president of Ohio University, Dr. Roderick McDavis , issued an ALS ice bucket challenge to the Student Senate President, Megan Marzec. Ms. Marzec decided to do a bucket challenge but not for ALS. She had a video made of her pouring a “blood” bucket over herself while declaring that Ohio University should join a “Boycott Divestment and Sanctions” movement against the nation of Israel. Ms. Marzec actually used red-food colored water, not real blood.
In her video, she shared “student” concerns about genocide in Gaza and it’s occupation by the Israeli State. Then she urged Dr. McDavis and Ohio University to “divest and cut all ties” with Israeli Academic Institutions and businesses. She said that the bucket of blood represented thousands of murdered and displaced Palestinians.
Ms. Marzec made her video on September 2nd. The Student Senate, later that same day, sent out a Tweet via Twitter to apologize for Senate President Marzec’s video, and then another tweet to state that their goal is to represent all students on campus and their views. The Wednesday after this video was created and aired, 4 Jewish students decided to speak out at a Student Government meeting and stage a filibuster, asking for Marzec’s resignation from the Student President position. Marzec asked for student Rebecca Sebo, President of Bobcats for Israel(the Bobcat is the mascot of Ohio University) to stop her filibuster so other students at the meeting could speak in an orderly manner. Sebo refused to stop and three other members of Bobcats for Israel also began to speak and join the filibuster. Marzec then warned the 4 protesters that if they didn’t stop they’d be arrested for disrupting the meeting. University Police were called and they gave the 4 protesters a 2 minute warning to stop their filibuster. The 4 students refused to stop speaking and were arrested, taken to the campus police station and charged with disruption of a lawful meeting. On September 12, Hillel International, a nationwide Jewish campus organization, has called upon Ohio University to apologize to the 4 students who were arrested: Rebecca Sebo, Max Peltz, Gabriel Sirkin, and Jonah Yulish.
My son’s take on all of this hubbub is that the students who were protesting at the Student Senate meeting shouldn’t have been arrested. Perhaps they should have followed the protocol that is used when one wants to speak at a Student Government meeting, Roberts Rules of Order, etc. However, stating their desire to have the Student President resign-that’s an offense where they needed to be arrested?
Ms. Marzec made a major error in her video. She said she was sharing “student” concerns. No, she was stating her “own” concerns, and perhaps if she’d made the video stating that it was her own opinion, and not say that all 17,000 students held her same views on Israel and Gaza and Palestinians, then perhaps her video blood bucket challenge wouldn’t have been so offensive.
In hindsight, if a University President, in a spirit of goodwill and bonhomie, asks one to participate in an ice water challenge to raise funds for a charity, than wouldn’t it be best for all at said University to honor the President’s request? The consequences of honoring President McDavis’s original challenge would have been nonexistant. Student President Marzec showed a lack of common sense in answering a simple request/challenge by turning a fun way to help a charity into an immature rant that was gross and offensive.
How invested is Ohio University in the nation of Israel? I don’t know and I don’t care! If the University was misusing students’ dollars to pay for lavish vacations for professors or for President McDavis, or if there was a major cheating scandal happening at the school, or even bullying going on, or lousy cafeteria food-those are the types of items I would anticipate a Student President and Student Senate to be concerned with, not what is going on in a nation very far away from Athens, Ohio. Idiocy 101; it happens in real life, and unfortunately, on college campuses.
Research for this blog provided by: “Ohio University divided over Student Senate president’s blood bucket challenge”, by Karen Farkas, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sept. 16th, 2014.
“Ohio University Asked To Apologize Following Arrest of Pro-Israel Students”, by Stephen Adkins, University Herald, Sept. 15th, 2014.