Movies Similar to The Millionairess (1961)

A beautiful and wealthy woman in the market for a husband believes she has found the right man -- only to discover he isn't especially interested, in this comedy based on a play by George Bernard Shaw. Epifania Parerga (Sophia Loren) is a woman who has inherited a vast fortune, making her the wealthiest woman on Earth. All Parerga really wants is a happy marriage, but her first stab at matrimony, with Alastair (Gary Raymond), is a disaster, and when she visits a psychiatrist in hopes of learning what she did wrong, her analyst, Dr. Adrian (Dennis Price), attempts to seduce her. Parerga is nearly ready to give up when she meets Dr. Ahmed el Kabir) (Peter Sellers), a shy and well-mannered Indian physician who operates a clinic for the underprivileged. While Kabir is personable, he seems to have no interest in Parerga's money and is unfazed by her beauty; convinced he can love her simply for who she is, Parerga decides Kabir is the man for her. However hard Parerga tries to throw herself at him, Kabir refuses to budge, and even after she bankrolls a new clinic for him, he does not respond to her advances. Eventually, Parerga offers Kabir a challenge -- she bets him that he can't triple his profits at his new clinic in three months, while he in turn wagers her that she cannot live without money for the same period of time. A spin-off of the The Millionairess was a novelty song called "Goodness Gracious Me", in which Sellers and Loren duetting as a doctor from India and his alluring patient; a recording of the tune became a hit single in the United Kingdom. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi