"[This film] concerns (I think) the adventures of the young and shapely Miss [Sydne] Rome, a hitchhiker who stumbles upon a bizarre country villa that also functions as a private hospital.
"Among the inmates are [Marcello] Mastroianni, who keeps repeating, 'What would be nice, I think, would be for us to meet for dinner' until we want to mash a plate of lasagna in his face. He walks about in a bathrobe, smoking a cigarette and inspiring us to wonder how in the world he got into the movies. Really. Mastroianni, one of the most charismatic actors in the world, reduced to a cipher. Hugh Griffith, wearing his usual ferocious whiskers, plays an old tyrant who is forever about to drop dead of a heart attack. [Roman] Polanski plays another inmate who's a Ping-Pong buff. Mastroianni and, finally, Miss Rome keep stepping on his Ping-Pong balls and crushing them, which leads to no end of ill feeling. I would desperately like to believe no symbolism is intended."
Diary of Forbidden Dreams (a.k.a. What?)