Cinema: Random Number

“10”

Directed and Written by Blake Edwards

This movie contains what may well be the year’s funniest sequence. It consists simply of a very old woman, bent almost double under the weight of her senility, inching painfully and in total silence across a room to serve tea to a pair of gentlemen earnestly conversing, trying not to embarrass her by calling attention to her infirmity. Eventually she arrives at her destination, spills the contents of the tray as she sets it down, then departs as slowly and silently as she arrived. Her master and his guest gamely go along with the pretense that the retainer is as efficient and unobtrusive as ever, and she, of course, is blissfully unaware of her klutziness. The result is an almost perfect example of the kind of purely visual humor of which Blake Edwards (The Pink Panther’s keeper) is a modern master.

There are other delicious bits and pieces scattered throughout “10”—Dudley Moore trying to make a cool entrance on a hot beach, and having to throw towels ahead of him to protect his feet from the burning sand; a woman who insists on making love precisely to the rhythm of Ravel’s Bolero; a lengthy mix-up involving dentistry, painkillers, the telephone, a telescope, some naked ladies, a swimming pool, a steep hillside and the police. It is really quite indescribable —but gorgeously orchestrated.

None of the set pieces have much to do with the plot, which has Moore as a composer growing bored with his longtime inamorata (Julie Andrews). His discontent takes the form of an obsession with a lovely creature (Bo Derek) whom he briefly glimpses in bridal gown and veil on her way to her wedding and ranks at the top of the familiar l-to-10 scale.

The rating is well deserved, and nothing will do but that he discover her name, trace her whereabouts and follow her to Acapulco. The obsession, of course, puts him in the way of the small, slightly irrelevant misadventures Edwards so hilariously develops, and had he stuck to straightforward farce, the writer-director might well have made a comedy of surpassing quality.

Alas, he has other, more serious fish to fry. These take the form of ponderous reflections on the contemporary situation of the sexes, on which subject he is distressingly garrulous, and not exactly Wildean in expressing himself. A digression into homosexuality is well-meaning, but somehow patronizing and out of tone with the rest of the film. A bedtime discussion between Moore and Andrews about just what he means by the term “broad” establishes Edwards’ credentials as a feminist, but does not contribute much to the gaiety of nations. There are some boozy barroom dissertations that are every bit as entertaining on film as they are in real life.

Finally, when Moore is invited into the bed of his hotly pursued “10,” he finds that her modern matter-of-factness about sex turns him off, suddenly putting Edwards on the side of romantic tradition. It seems that these days the angels are on more than one side, and Edwards wants to stand with them everywhere. This is particularly hard on Andrews, who is Mrs. Edwards, and is here called upon mostly to be long-suffering, which she does with her customary cheery professionalism, but with small chance of large rewards. Most of the good material is left to Moore, who is a gifted farceur and very brave about soldiering through the editorials. He is not a forceful comedian, but he is opportunistic, intelligent and, occasionally, touchingly vulnerable. This film could provide him the chance, finally, to find the large audience he deserves.

With so much about the film that is fall-on-the-floor funny, it is perhaps ungrateful to complain about Edwards’ philosophical aspirations. But “10 ” had a shot at being a 10 on the comedy scale, and it is a source of regret to place it in the 6-to-7 range.

Richard Schickel