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Jean-Paul Belmondo

 

 

UP TO HIS EARS

Lopert Pictures, 1965.  Directed by Philippe de Broca.  Camera:  Edmond Séchan.  With Jean-Paul Belmondo, Ursula Andress, Maria Pacôme, Valérie Legrange, Jess Hahn, Valérie Inkjinoff, Jean Rochefort, Darry Cowl, Joe Said, Paul Préboist, Mario David, Boris, Lenissevitch.

Arthur Lempereur, young heir to a fabulous fortune, and literally bored to death, has unsuccessfully attempted suicide nine times in one week.  Sitting aboard his yacht in Hong Kong with his fiancée, Alice, her mother, Suzy, his faithful valet, Léon, and his Chinese guardian, Mr. Goh, Arthur is informed by his business manager that he has just lost all of his money in a stock market crash.

This gives Arthur good reason to attempt suicide again; however, the wise Mr. Goh suggests that Arthur put his death to a good cause and tells Arthur to insure himself for $2,000,000 making Alice and himself the beneficiaries.  Arthur agrees, and since the insurance policy becomes invalid when death is caused by suicide, Mr. Goh assures Arthur he will have him murdered quickly and painlessly.

There ensues a wild chase which leads from the waterfronts of Hong Kong to New Delhi to Nepal in the Himalayas and back to Hong Kong as the killers attempt to catch Arthur, who has changed his mind and now wants desperately to live because he has fallen madly in love with a stripper named Alexandrine.  She strips by night and is a student of archeology by day.

Finally, back on his yacht with Alexandrine, Arthur learns that Mr. Goh never meant to kill him; that the real intended killer was hired by his future mother-in-law, Suzy, who wanted to protect her daughter's insurance claim.  The two men tailing him so closely were from the insurance company, and his stocks did not crash—they doubled!

Notes
The film is based on the novel Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine by Jules Verne (Paris, 1879).  It opened in Paris in December 1965 as Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine; running time: 110 min; in Rome in December 1965 as L'uomo di Hong Kong; running time: 110 min.

American Film Institute

 
       
 

Additional photo courtesy of Frances