User Reviews

Absolutely dreadful comedy again proving that even with a marvelous cast, the writing when awful shall do the picture in. That's exactly what happens here.

The picture is fast paced and concerns when Rosemary Harris suspects her husband, Rex Harrison, a barrister, of infidelity and gets Rachel Roberts to write a love letter to Harrison and then confront him. The problem is that Roberts' husband, a jealous Spaniard, sees the letter and recognizes her handwriting.

The picture then becomes one of a very fast comedy with ridiculous running around and everyone being pursued by everyone else.

The usually reliable Louis Jourdan is a real lover of Harris, who like everyone else is caught up in the mayhem. Add a double to Harrison and you've got complete lunacy.

Lunacy-that's exactly what this farce is.

A Flea In Her Ear was a story focused on a well respected Parisian Couple played by Rex Harrison and Rosemary Harris. Rex shows his deadpan comedic genius as the misunderstood Husband while an untrustworthy wife has he own ideas about her husband as she makes her way to the Hotel Coq Dor. Our story goes astray as they show our verbally challenged nephew.His mind is on other things reading a racy magazine under his law journals. John Williams noted for his long running Classical music commercial during late night television movies. William plays his physician and voice of reason throughout this misunderstood campy movie. The Nephew has an over pronounced speech impediment(suffers from a cleft palate) and the actor is quite convincing in his role played by Edward Hardwicke but this story is about mistaken identity right? Wrong. I was interested if poor Mummbling Nephew who has his bight plate soaking in a glass for testing cause quite frankly I never really cared if Harrison and Harris relationship worked out.This movie was the first time I ever heard of that affliction in a person. A hole in the roof of a person's mouth. I only wanted to find out if the Nephew would try on and wear his new devise to hear the sweet normal sounds of his voice. In a weird twist the nephew follows Harris to the Hotel Coq Dor with a female companion and to his surprise comes face to face with a martial arts fighter and gets a Karate chop by famed character actor famous for playing second banana in the Charlie Chan movie series Victor Sen Young. Nephew doesn't fair to well Sen Yun to the neck and looses his plate. Poor Nephew is back to mumbling again. Will Nephew ever have an operation? Oh I almost forgot about our couple in question. Who cares ! Get the palate fixed. Nice visit from British comedic actor Frank Thorton of GRACE AND FAVOR fame as he plays a butler for Harrison. Fidelity is not the issue here but a man's mouth is at stake.

Around about 1968, Hollywood finally discovered the French bedroom farce. About thirty or forty years late, I will admit, but who's complaining when it's realized with such taste and stunning elegance as here in "A Flea in Her Ear"! The delightfully rococo sets conjured up by production designer Alexandre Trauner, plus the ritzy color photography by Charles Lang add to our pleasure, but it's possible that director Jacques Charon is the man with the most admirable sense of the visually picturesque. The wide Panavision screen is constantly filled with carefully composed kaleidoscopes of high-life Parisian fashion and nineteenth century bric-a-brac.

Like most scripts of this type, ringing the changes does tend to outstay its initial welcome. Admittedly, Rex Harrison is partly to blame as, in my opinion, his alter ego doesn't seem credible. But the rest of the players are simply admirable.