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2 1/2 stars (out of 4)

Claude Lelouch's "And Now Ladies and Gentlemen" is a movie best suited for a lazy afternoon or a languorous night, particularly if you're a Francophile. Charming, glamorous, emotionally suggestive but slight, it's full of beautiful and colorful people (headed by stars Jeremy Irons and Patricia Kaas) in exotic settings (Paris, London and Morocco) doing familiar but charming things.

How can you dislike a film like that, especially if it's made with the extreme fluency and technical expertise Lelouch usually displays? Yet how can you feel anything more deeply for it than casual amusement, even if its creator obviously wants you to?

Lelouch is a marvelous visual stylist. He shoots ultra-romantic movie fantasies as if they were cinema verite docudramas, and his effortless style imparts a whiff of realism that the stories can't always support. Still, there's something affectionately exhilarating about his best films, something that beguiles us and pulls us in, sometimes despite our better judgment. "Ladies and Gentlemen" is no exception.

Seemingly the whole world (including the 1966 Cannes Festival jury and that year's Oscar voters for best foreign-language film) loved Lelouch's "A Man and a Woman," the dreamy tale of a race driver (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and a model (Anouk Aimee) who were meant for each other. After four decades, that film's suave schmaltz and effervescent imagery can still hook you. "And Now Ladies and Gentlemen" is made in much the same vein as Lelouch's earlier world hit - as well as his "And Now My Love," "Live for Life" and "Another Man, Another Chance." It's about the love affair of an elegant jewel thief, Irons' Valentin Valentin, and a troubled chanteuse, Kaas' Jane Lester - two kindred spirits in London and Paris who haven't met but begin suffering blackouts early in the movie, then finally cross paths after amnesia overtakes them both in Fez, Morocco.

There, Valentin, his mind a blank, docks his yacht, the "Ladies and Gentlemen," and they see each other in a piano bar and fall in love, in some shamelessly enjoyable scenes. Around them swirls a series of intrigues: a love affair between Valentin's ex-mistress Francoise (Allesandra Martines) and Thierry (Thierry L'hermitte), the fellow who sold him the yacht (Thierry L'hermitte), and also a mysterious jewel robbery. The stolen diamonds belong to the maddeningly selfish Contessa Falconetti (Claudia Cardinale), and Valentin is immediately suspected, before a false alibi supplied by Jane springs him. As the lovers gain back their memories and each other, a dogged Moroccan police inspector (Amidou in full glower) hounds the lovers while they engage in swoony pursuits, including a trek up the hills of Moulay-Yacoub to the spectacular tomb of Lalia Chafia. Interspersed with it all, Kaas sings.

It's her singing that gives this movie its real center. The songs are bittersweet French cabaret standards by great Gallic singer/songwriters like Jacques Brel, Charles Trenet, Edith Piaf and Charles Aznavour. The arrangements are by Michel Legrand (one French film composer who can be described unblushingly as an auteur, not only for his lilting scores but for his fine 1989 autobiographical film "Five Days in June"). And the splendid performances are by Kaas. A regular European chart-topper whose last album, "Piano Bar," helped inspire this film, her interpretations are unfailingly lush and melancholy, sung in a smoky voice that suggests the last glass of liquor in a bar that's about to close.

"A Man and a Woman" may have made Lelouch's worldwide reputation, but it's also, to some extent, his curse, since it's almost automatically assumed that he hasn't gone, or isn't capable of going, beyond it. That may be true, though "Les Miserables" and others now seem better films. But it's still soothing, perhaps, to find a filmmaker who knows his metier so well, keeps things so effortlessly smooth and luscious, even if the results are predictable. And he's very good with the actors. Irons is delightfully suave and smooth, Kaas sings exquisitely, and the supporting cast (especially L'hermitte and Amidou) hit broadly amusing big notes.

Lelouch is a master of the camera but less deft as a writer. The fantastical, moonstruck "Ladies and Gentlemen" is inspired, oddly enough, by two real people Lelouch met separately - a bar singer who forgot song lyrics and a conscience-stricken thief - whom he imagines as lovers. But whatever their origins, the two don't seem real here; their affair is as gossamer as movie moonbeams on some Parisian skyline screen.

Is the film about predestination? Or French golden-oldies nostalgia? (Watching it, you can't wait for the CD.) Or is it a movie fantasy about other movies, other stories, other songs?

In the end, Lelouch is the kind of French film romantic, technically expert and heart-on-sleeve, who sharply divides American audiences. Some revel in his sensuous fantasies and settings; others grumble about his thick glamour, artificial plots and characters. Yet, in the '60s, Lelouch, like Jacques Demy and Philippe De Broca, was more genuinely popular with average American movie audiences than Truffaut, Rohmer or Godard, and his admirers then (and now) probably think he represents the acme of '60s French film romanticism. Others dismiss his tales as French-fried schmaltz. Both sides exaggerate; actually, Lelouch often purveys a bit of both, to our mixed but genuine amusement. So does "And Now Ladies and Gentlemen."

"And Now Ladies and Gentlemen"
Directed and produced by Claude Lelouch; written by Lelouch, Pierre Leroux, Pierre Uytterhoeven; photographed by Pierre-William Glenn; edited by Helene de Luze; production designed by Johann George; music by Michel Legrand; song lyrics by Boris Bergman, Paul Ives. In English and French, with English subtitles. A Paramount Classics release; opens Friday, Aug. 22. Running time: 2:06. MPAA rating: PG-13 (momentary language).
Valentin Valentin - Jeremy Irons
Jane Lester - Patricia Kaas
Thierry - Thierry L'hermitte
Francoise - Allesandra Martines
Dr. Lamy/Pharmacist - Jean-Marie Bigard
Boubou - Ticky Holgado
Contessa Falconetti - Claudia Cardinale
Police Inspector - Amidou

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