The Rough and the Smooth

Aqueronte72

13 sep 2024

⭐ 4/10

Fun but with a script that is quite messy and unnecessarily tangled, not to mention the terrible performance of the beautiful Nadja Tiller, how bad an actress? enough to not understand, until halfway through the movie, that he is not pretending to be a spy or someone who wants to ruin Mike Thomson's expedition - the expedition for the ark of Ararat that he has embarked on - thanks to his commitment to the beautiful but controller Margareth Goreham, niece of tycoon Lord Drewell, who will finance the research trip. I repeat, the humorous script, about a gentleman in a hurry to get to Upper Belgrave who is taken for a pimp or sexual client in search of adventure by Ila Hansen, promises more. Especially because we stop seeing Ila and the viewer assumes. Yes, but it is in vain because Jane Bull inaugurates a Yacht Club or aristocratic barges for high-bourgeois entertainment. It begins with a duel of pride between Ila and Mike, we lose sight of her and then we see Mike's arrogance collide with Drewell's megalomania, especially for trying to steal Mike's idea of ​​the ark even though he financed it. The fussy and fun part of the film becomes annoying when 45 minutes have passed and it is still unknown what the intentions of Ila are, whom Mike sees again due to obvious attraction in the same bar; bar where, by the way, Ila receives all kinds of messages or messages like the one from Barker, a message seen by Mike and through which he questions the pretty girl with whom he has already spent a few hours and the love letters have been put on the table when he beautiful stranger, Ila has witnessed the way Mike rejected or momentarily suspended his engagement to Margareth because he was not sure about the marriage. It remains unclear after an hour what the role of Ila is, who recognizes or pretends to be Barker's secretary. And so we meet the fatuous and cynically funny Reg Barker played to perfection by Bendix and who, in reality, is the lover who pays everything he can for her in order to keep her at his side, as he will eventually confess to Mike. But the secret that Ila keeps, besides being an inveterate liar, is that she does not have a brother, who she said caused her bruises, but rather the lover or exploiter who has suddenly left prison or arrived in the city, it is not clear to me, but when he returns he demands money that she has promised him and which has no funds, a check issued by Barker and which, having no money, loses importance for the femme fatale whose little theater has fallen because now, without the money, neither will the lover. he wants her. Barker receives a check from Mike who is quite condescending to him, although he ends up committing suicide and it turns out that Ila tries to get Mike or £1,500 back but fails to do either when dealing with Margareth.