After the Fox (Italian: Caccia alla volpe) is a 1966 Italian-American heist comedy directed by Vittorio De Sica and starring Peter Sellers. The English-language script was written by Neil Simon, while Burt Bacharach and Hal David took charge on music.
An Italian mastermind (Sellers) masquerades as a film director to find loot on a beach where a bogus movie is being made.
The movie also stars Victor Mature, Britt Ekland, Martin Balsam, Akim Tamiroff, Maria Grazia Buccella, Paolo Stoppa, Tino Buazzelli, and De Sica.
Tropes for the film:
- All Part of the Show: In order to unload stolen gold from a ship, Aldo Vanucci pretends to be shooting a movie at a small town on the Italian coast. He allows the entire population to "act" in his movie by helping him unload the gold. Later a film critic finds that the film is a work of art.
- Fakeout Escape:
- Aldo, the eponymous escape artist and thief, pretends to escape, and then succeeds in escaping, by dressing up as the prison doctor, pretending he had been tied up by The Fox, and that the real doctor, who was already out of the building, was in fact The Fox. The Fox is escorted out with much sympathy, and the jailers go chasing after the unfortunate doctor.
- Then, at the movie's end, The Fox is back behind bars, and the same situation is played out, but this time, the guards decide to not fall for that again and leave the doctor tied up in the cell. Outside, The Fox pulls on his disguise beard... and it doesn't come off. He exclaims "My God, the wrong man escaped!"
- Film Felons: The plot is about The Fox who poses as a film director in order to easily transfer a large quantity of stolen gold.
- Luxury Prison Suite: Criminal Mastermind Aldo, aka The Fox, is in prison in the beginning (brazenly telling the warden the exact time he'll escape)- when his family visits, he gives them presents of candy, cigarettes, and fresh fruit.
- Title Theme Tune: Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, performed by Sellers with The Hollies.
- White-Dwarf Starlet: The movie has former "international handsome star" Tony Powell. He's artificially tanned and white-toothed (which he shows off as a Perpetual Smiler), uses shoe polish to cover his graying hair and is convinced that he's perfect to make a comeback as the hero of the old noir films he used to star in while his agent tries to bring him to reality. Aldo is easily able to manipulate him.
