Rating: 
Summary: Unless Your Buying This to See Connie Booth . . .
Review: . . . don't buy it. Faulty Towers is the funniest thing John and Connie ever did together--this is nowhere near that level. There are only two pieces of Cleese's work I enjoyed less than this: "How to Irritate People" and "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization, as We Know It". There are a few laughs in "Romance" but seeing a most lovely Connie in the buff is its only truly redeeming trait, and that is only redeeming for half of us . . . The funniest Cleese-Booth work ever created is the "Fawlty Towers" complete set. It is pure genius and you can watch the episodes a dozen times, each, without tiring a bit!
Rating:
Summary: Unless Your Buying This to See Connie Booth . . .
Review: . . . don't buy it. Faulty Towers is the funniest thing John and Connie ever did together--this is nowhere near that level. There are only two pieces of Cleese's work I enjoyed less than this: "How to Irritate People" and "The Strange Case of the End of Civilization, as We Know It". There are a few laughs in "Romance" but seeing a most lovely Connie in the buff is its only truly redeeming trait, and that is only redeeming for half of us . . . The funniest Cleese-Booth work ever created is the "Fawlty Towers" complete set. It is pure genius and you can watch the episodes a dozen times, each, without tiring a bit!
Rating:
Summary: Come on now #2.
Review: I gave this 2 stars because everyone gave it 5. If you just look at the star rating you might be misled. Five stars is really overdoing it. The Meaning of Life is absolutely 5 stars, but this is really more like 3-3 1/2 stars. I am a big fan of John Cleese and most of his endeavors, but all his efforts can't be 5 star material.Overall, a pretty good flick, quite charming.
Rating:
Summary: not what I expected
Review: I was looking forward to this being a good movie because John Cleese is a good actor. Disappointed is what I was. Maybe after watching all the Fawly Towers episodes I expected more. I never even laughed. I don't think I will watch this again. The best thing about the movie was the scenery and I don't mean bare bottoms. I still really like John Cleese, but not this movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A comedy of class and timing
Review: John Cleese and Connie Booth star in this adaption of Chekov's play. Without dialogue and often without clothing the pair make their way through a variety of social and personal situations with a care which Miss Manners would appreciate. This is less slapstick than it is social commentary but hilarious none the less.
Rating:
Summary: Unusual romantic comedy
Review: John Cleese is a put-upon double bass player in an orchestra which has been engaged to play at the engagement party of a Russian princess (Connie Booth). When Cleese arrives too early for the party he is turned away by a haughty footman, so he goes off to bathe in the lake. The Princess has also decided to take a dip in the lake, but while they are swimming disaster strikes and a thief steals their clothes. John Cleese is faced with the daunting task of getting himself, the princess and the double bass back to the house without anyone seeing them. How he accomplishes this is very funny, and the journey is frought with peril. This is a slight but very amusing comedy with a charming ending, based on a Chekhov short story, but it has greatly improved on the original.
Rating:
Summary: More like 4.5, and 5 stars until the last few minutes
Review: Quite a bit more introspective and delicate than most of Cleese's work (how often have you heard anyone describe a Flying Circus or Fawlty Towers sketch as "delicate"?), this adaptation of a Chekov short story is not likely to be exactly what the typical Python fan is expecting. But it is very successful in doing what it wants to do, and utterly hilarious if you're not locked into misguided expectations. Only at the end does the film lose its grip a bit, and I think this is simply because of the complexity of feeling that has to be communicated utterly without dialogue. It is especially remarkable to find a film in which the male and female leads spend half the film nude and in each other's company, yet without any but the most subtle of sexual overtones. Booth and Cleese have grasped the fact that the central engine of the story is the social gap between the princess and the musician, a gap so unthinkably vast that neither character could ever contemplate a liason. (They might possibly fantasize about one, but they could never seriously contemplate one.) More impressively, they communicate that gap consistently, powerfully, and without a single explicit reference to it, even (I think) to those with no knowledge of Tsarist Russian social structures. The result is much more reminiscent of the skinny-dipping scene in A Room for a View than of the sex education scene in Meaning of Life -- laugh-out-loud funny, but titillating only for those immovably determined to be titillated. If you like Meaning of Life for the same reason you like the Farrelly Brothers, and haven't enough range in your comedic palate to enjoy anything with less subtlety than the (admittedly hilarious) Twit of the Year sketch, then you should probably stay away from this film, or at the very least keep your expectations low. If, on the other hand, you like to take an occasional break from your Guiness in order to enjoy a nice crisp Chardonnay, then don't miss it. That last sentence, by the way, was metaphorical, in case anyone thought I was inexplicably changing the subject. ;-) A P.S. to parents: though the nudity is as close to asexual as full nudity very well can be, it is still full nudity, both male and female, lasting for the better part of the film.
Rating: 
Summary: Comedic genius in czarist Russia.
Review: This film doesn't deserve to be lost in the depths of cinematic memory. Based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, the tale of a Russian musician and a beautiful princess is delightful even after repeated viewings. While the humor isn't painted with quite so broad a brush as Monty Python or "Fawlty Towers," it certainly captures Cleese's trademark humor. "Romance With a Double Bass" is a charming film, one I recommend highly.
Rating:
Summary: the funniest 40-minute-long film I have seen
Review: This film has me helpless with laughter every time I watch it. It is supremely funny and perfectly executed. John Cleese demonstrates again that he is probably the best actor around at performing farce; Connie Booth is at her most charming; the rest of the rest is pleasingly filled with fine character actors (including Andrew Sachs, making this a sort of FAWLTY TOWERS reunion). An aside: Those who have heard about the film's abundant nudity might presume it to be something akin to those raunchy, lowbrow British productions that Cinemax used to dredge up on Friday nights. Actually, the tone of the film is surprisingly innocent. The effect of their nakedness is to equalize the princess and the poor musician, not to excite them.
Rating:
Summary: the funniest 40-minute-long film I have seen
Review: This film has me helpless with laughter every time I watch it. It is supremely funny and perfectly executed. John Cleese demonstrates again that he is probably the best actor around at performing farce; Connie Booth is at her most charming; the rest of the rest is pleasingly filled with fine character actors (including Andrew Sachs, making this a sort of FAWLTY TOWERS reunion). An aside: Those who have heard about the film's abundant nudity might presume it to be something akin to those raunchy, lowbrow British productions that Cinemax used to dredge up on Friday nights. Actually, the tone of the film is surprisingly innocent. The effect of their nakedness is to equalize the princess and the poor musician, not to excite them.
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