A moderately diverting little spy spoof, Caprice is neither as bad as critics at the time of its release proclaimed it nor as good as its more ardent fans claim. It's a perfectly fine way to pass a little time, but it's simply not as good a film as it could and should have been. Its flaws are evident: it doesn't really know whether it wants to totally spoof the spy film genre or not. Thus, director Frank Tashlin alternates scenes of cartoon-like humor with scenes which are dead serious. He can be successful in either mode: the sugar cube microphone sequence is quite funny and the skiing sequence is genuinely suspenseful and filled with tension. But the two halves don't ever really come together, and so the film feels like it's constantly going off in two different directions. For those who don't mind this "multiple personality" aspect, Caprice offers ample rewards. Doris Day and Richard Harris are perhaps a strange pairing, but there's a quirky kind of chemistry between the two of them, and both bring a considerable amount of skill and personality to their parts. Ray Walston, Edward Mulhare and Jack Kruschen are dependable pros who make the most of their supporting parts. And Leon Shamroy's cinematography is much better than this kind of film usually requires.
