“After a four-year break from films, Julie had entered the 1990s making what was known severally as A Fine Romance (America), Tchin-Tchin (Northern Europe), Cin-Cin (Italy), A Touch of Adultery (Britain) and Afternoon Tea in Bed (Japan). Co-starring Marcello Mastroianni, and based on a boulevard comedy by François Billetdoux, it was a flop in any language.
The two stars played up to the image expected of them: tired Latin lover Cesario and starchy English lady Pamela, who realise their respective spouses are having an affair. When Cesario pushes her to admit her own private passions, Pamela haltingly admits, ‘I’m no different from anybody else. But I’m strait laced and I’m British and I’m very busy, so people think I’m cold.’ Inevitably, the couple fall a little bit in love, and end up having their own affair – long after their spouses have returned to them. Julie, dressed by Versace, looked smart but not particularly elegant. She was seen riding a motorcycle, driving a Range Rover, dispensing charity to the Parisian poor and treating her twenty-two-year-old son in the film as if he were Friedrich von Trapp.
Filmed mostly in Paris and Biarritz, it was directed by Gene Saks, without much authority. Further marred by bad dubbing, it came out and went almost straight to videotape. ”
Excerpt From: Richard Stirling. “Julie Andrews: An Intimate Biography”.
