Amici miei (1975)

Director:

Mario Monicelli

Writers:

Leonardo Benvenuti (writer)
Piero De Bernardi (writer)

Release Date:

18 July 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Necchi (a bar owner), Perozzi (a journalist), Melandri (an architect) and Mascetti (a broken nobleman) live in Florence...

Plot Keywords:

Friend | Joke | Friendship | Italy | Lesbian

Awards:

5 wins

Cast

Ugo Tognazzi	...	Lello Mascetti
Gastone Moschin	...	Rambaldo Melandri
Philippe Noiret	...	Giorgio Perozzi
Duilio Del Prete	...	Necchi
Olga Karlatos	...	Donatella Sassaroli
Silvia Dionisio	...	Titti
Franca Tamantini	...	Carmen
Angela Goodwin	...	Nora Perozzi
Milena Vukotic	...	Alice Mascetti
Bernard Blier	...	Righi Niccolò
Adolfo Celi	...	Professor Sassaroli
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Edda Ferronao	...	Nun
Maurizio Scattorin	...	Perozzi's son
Marisa Traversi	...	Perozzi's lover
Mauro Vestri	...	Specialist doctor for Melandri
Valeria Vitti	...	Prostitute

Also Known As:

My Friends

Runtime:

140 min | Sweden:114 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technospes)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Sweden:11 | USA:R | West Germany:16 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Calcata, Viterbo, Lazio, Italy

Company:

R.P.A. Cinematografica

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Superfantozzi (1986)

Obnoxious

Perhaps if Pietro Germi had had the opportunity to direct his own script, this one might have turned out differently. Unfortunately, he died before that could happen, after quite a distinguished, if generally unheralded, career.

Without him at the helm, we are left with something that is just plain offensive. From the get-go.

There are a tiny handful of films I've ever walked out of. "Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS" comes to mind. I'd had one gratuitous torture scene too many in that instance.

I walked out of this ostensible comedy after 80 minutes, during the "fun-filled" suicide scene. I remember that there was a laugh during the film's first half hour although it seems hard to believe that there were any at all in retrospect.

Philippe Noiret is in the cast. He's a personal favourite and usually a reliable judge of material. His faith in this script was misplaced.

Noiret is involved in what should have been one of the film's "subtle" moments. The four old buddies, the central characters, sing the quartet from Verdi's Rigoletto. (The song is not identified as such. It's an Italian movie so there's no need to.) Then later Noiret sports a fake hump on his back just like the tragic court jester. Obviously someone (Germi?) had a gag in mind at this point, but no connection is made between the two incidents. It's just dead, like the rest of the film.

The four buddies are the central characters and the central problem. As we get to know them, they turn out to be malicious jerks -- sort of the middle-aged Jerky Boys of Italy -- and they are soon enough joined by a fifth halfwit.

I regret to say that these loutish characters like some of the same things I do, like Cynar and finocchio. That's about the only thing they have to their credit.

Director Mario Monicelli recycles one of Germi's old sight gags. During a caper, one of the four, the crudest of the "funnymen", Ugo Tognazzi, is seen reading a copy of "Famiglia Cristiana" magazine. Ha, ha. That particular incongruity was tastefully funny back when Germi was directing, in "Seduced and Abandoned" (1964), I think it was. Not here.

The screening did receive steady laughs throughout, most noticeably from the two fellows of questionable taste behind me. But I noticed the room had a lot of other laugh-free zones, not just mine.

This one is sour, and negative, and extremely misogynistic. You really have to have a grudge against the fair sex to derive any pleasure from this film.