Caprice (1967 film)

Caprice is a 1967 DeLuxe Color comedy-thriller film directed and co-written by Frank Tashlin starring Doris Day and Richard Harris. It was Day's second and last film with Tashlin, after the previous year's The Glass Bottom Boat. This film and In Like Flint (1967) were the last movies made in CinemaScope, with most studios moving to Panavision and other widescreen processes.

Plot
Patricia Foster, an industrial designer for Femina Cosmetics, owned by Sir Jason Fox, is arrested for trying to sell a secret formula to a rival company, May Fortune, owned by Matthew Cutter. After her release and her firing from Femina, Patricia is hired by Cutter. All of this is actually a scheme devised by Sir Jason for Patricia to steal the formula for a new water-repellent hairspray, invented by Dr Stuart Clancy, May Fortune's head chemist.

Christopher White, Cutter's right-hand man, convinces Patricia that he, too, secretly works for Sir Jason. Christopher eventually learns Patricia Foster is not her actual name.

Patricia goes to the apartment of Su Ling, Clancy's secretary, and finds her unconscious on the floor. She takes a sample of the powder lying on her table for Sir Jason to have it analyzed. Patricia also finds a bottle of the hairspray and takes it with her. Christopher catches her, threatening her with telling Sir Jason that her real name is Felippa Fowler.

Patricia reveals she is the daughter of Robert Fowler, a man who was murdered while on the trail of a narcotics ring. According to him, the head of the ring was a woman, most probably his murderer. Although finding her father's killer is her main objective, Patricia is still devoted to Sir Jason, to whom she plans to give the hairspray. Purposely breaking the bottle upon hearing this news – but noticing that it is an expensive Swiss one not used by Cutter – Christopher says Clancy has Swiss connections – he is married to a Swiss woman still living in Switzerland.

Patricia goes to Switzerland and finds Madame Piasco – Clancy's mother-in-law – who is the actual expert who had long ago come up with the formula. She gives a bottle to Patricia for free, stating that May Fortune now has the distribution rights and it will soon be on the market in America.

Patricia goes skiing on the same hill where her father died and comes under fire from a masked skier. Arriving in a helicopter, Christopher rescues her. Patricia eventually realizes that neither Christopher nor Sir Jason were ever after the hairspray. Clancy used to be the chief cosmetics chemist for Sir Jason but was an utter failure at it, and Sir Jason's true goal was to discover and hire the chemical mastermind behind Clancy, whose identity he still does not know. Regardless, Patricia plans to give the hairspray solely to Sir Jason, which was her agreed mission. Christopher and Patricia profess their love for each other, but he requests one more job from her concerning Sir Jason.

Later, Christopher secretly records Patricia while she speaks to Clancy. She offers Clancy a job as Femina's head chemist, with an illegal under-the-table bonus. Clancy declines, saying Cutter already knows about Madame Piasco, and if Cutter does not care, he is happy where he is. At his office, Cutter watches the film of this encounter. He tells Christopher that this footage will ruin Sir Jason.

Patricia visits Sir Jason, who tells her he convinced Madame Piasco to come and work for him. Patricia finds this incredible. Sir Jason also tells her about the analysis of the black powder, which contains a powerful narcotic. Patricia reveals she already had the powder analyzed herself. This other analysis was a test purely to see if he would tell the truth or lie, the latter of which would implicate him in her father's murder. Sir Jason reveals Cutter's sent the film to the Paris police, who are now after her for bribery.

As the police arrive, ready to arrest Patricia, Christopher snatches her away. He admits that he works for Interpol. Patricia tells Interpol that the narcotics were smuggled as May Fortune face powder, which was perfectly harmless until incinerated, when it turned into a hallucinogen. Nobody believes Cutter is smart enough to be the head of the narcotics ring. Donning a microphone to Interpol while searching through Cutter's Paris office, Patricia tells an arriving cleaning lady she need not clean there. The lady turns out to be Clancy in disguise, with a gun – he being the mysterious woman killer. Patricia fights Clancy, who is shot and dies. Sir Jason, the co-conspirator of the narcotics ring, arrives wielding a gun against Patricia. With Clancy dead, Sir Jason will have the cosmetics market all to himself. He forces Patricia into a helicopter and takes off. Christopher shoots and kills him from a distance, while Patricia manages to fly the helicopter back to Paris and land it atop the Eiffel Tower.

Cast

 * Doris Day as Patricia Foster
 * Richard Harris as Christopher White
 * Ray Walston as Dr. Stuart Clancy
 * Edward Mulhare as Sir Jason Fox
 * Jack Kruschen as Matthew Cutter
 * Lilia Skala as Madame Piasco
 * Michael J. Pollard as Barney
 * Irene Tsu as Su Ling
 * Lisa Seagram as Mandy

Arthur Godfrey, who played the father of Doris Day in Tashlin's previous comedy, The Glass Bottom Boat, plays her father once again but is only seen in a photograph.

Production
In February 1966 John Cohn, who co wrote the film, was announced as producer. Filming started in May.

Box office
The 20th Century Fox release was a box office bomb, failing to place in the top 20 movies for 1967. According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $7,200,000 in rentals to break even and made $4,580,000, meaning it lost money.

Critical
Film critic Leonard Maltin’s review of the film was quite negative. He gave the film zero stars and said the film was a “terrible vehicle for Doris.” In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther called the film "a jumble of wacky and feeble comedy." Roger Ebert was more amused, writing that "When everything has been said and done, you really have to stand back and admire the sheer professional competence of the people who make Doris Day movies ... If her movies never go anywhere, at least they don't take all day about it. They're directed with a light touch, skillfully edited, and get it over with in no time."

In her memoir, Day recounts an argument she had with her manager-husband Martin Melcher over the script for Caprice, unaware he had signed her name to the contracts before she had the chance to say no. On the DVD commentary, authors Pierre Patrick and John Cork discuss the ways the screenplay was rewritten, ostensibly to please the star. They speculated that recent interest in Tashlin's signature mixture of slapstick, satire, and adventure—coupled with its Mod design—has acquired renewed respect from film buffs and, possibly, from Day herself. Several writers have commented on the "meta" moment in which Doris Day "dashes into a movie theater, where the movie Caprice is playing."

Music
The title theme sung by Doris Day was released as the flip-side to her final single release on the Columbia Records label, the A-side being a more uptempo number, "Sorry."

Adaptations
The screenplay by Jay Jayson and Tashlin was novelized by Julia Withers and was published in paperback by Dell in February, 1967.

Home media
Initially only released on VHS in the UK, the movie was eventually released in a deluxe edition Region 1 DVD in January 2007 in widescreen and includes several extra features.