Une ravissante idiote

Une ravissante idiote is a French-Italian Cold War spy comedy directed by Édouard Molinaro. The screenplay, credited to François Billetdoux and André-Georges Tabet, adapts Charles Exbrayat's 1962 novel of the same name. Brigitte Bardot and Anthony Perkins head the cast: she plays a charming, seemingly naive woman, while he appears as a young Soviet agent, and their encounter turns into a playful cat-and-mouse game that mixes espionage intrigue with romantic farce. Rather than treating Cold War tensions solemnly, the film spoofs the conventions of the spy genre, letting mistaken assumptions and double identities drive the humor. Internationally, the picture circulated under several titles; in the United States it was distributed as Agent 38-24-36. Shot in the early 1960s French comedy tradition, it remains a lighthearted showcase for its two stars at the height of their international fame.