Reviews
Operazione San Pietro (1967)
Forget it...
Just a copy of another movie, "Operazione San Gennaro", realized in hurry to try to repeat its success. The plot is substantially the same (it is simply shifted from Naples to Rome) but without the humour and the style of the first one. Many of the secondary characters are the same in both the movies.
There is nothing particularly funny or smart in it, but for some strange reason this movie had more success outside Italy than the original, that is still broadcasted sometimes on the national television.
I carabbinieri (1981)
awful, but...
Just as introduction for the non-italian readers, the main characters of many italian jokes are the "Carabinieri", the elite police italian corp.
This plot of this movie is based simply on many of these jokes, one after the other without any link between them.
No story at all, acting often embarrassing and very vulgar dialogues, like many other comedies of that period, this film is worth to be seen only for the ten minutes when Diego Abatantuono is present, a real actor (in fact he is the only of the cast of this movie that is still working today, often with great directors as Salvatores or Pupi Avati), even when he is playing the role of the southern immigrant, as he does in this movie.
By the way, the main character of the most XXX-rated italian jokes is Pierino; try to search the IMDB with this name if you want to see some other horrible movies...
Non ci resta che piangere (1984)
a jewel
Two actors at their best (Roberto Benigni before he became big-headed after the world wide fame and the late lamented Massimo Troisi) playing a strange story, where these two young modern men wake up in 1492 after spending a night out because their car broke down.
Settled in the italian reinassance, pretty well depicted despite the low budget used, the movie is substantially a collection of sketches based on the struggles that the two men must fight against the different lifestyle, with some secondary stories based on historical personages lived in that time (Savonarola, Columbus, Da Vinci). This is one of the most beloved italian movie of all the times, and everybody saw this movie can remember all of the most famous dialogues (Vitellozzo after the death of his brother, the "remember that you shall die!" speech, the scene at the customs, and many others) by hearth, as they were funny and innovative.
Directed with a very slow rhythm, that adds a quite poetic touch to the story, this movie must be considered as a small masterpiece, a comedy unique of its kind. Comparing this with one of the later italian comedy should be done to understand the meaning of the term "good taste".
Unluckily, anybody without a very fluent italian can't completely enjoy this movie, because a big part of the funny side of this movie follows from the two heavy accents of the two main actors, mainly the one of Troisi.