Amici miei (1975)

User Rating:

8.1/10   

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
Amigos míos (Argentina) [es]
Det gamla gänget (Sweden) [sv]
Ein irres Klassentreffen (West Germany) [de]
Férfiak póráz nélkül (Hungary) [hu]
Habitación para cuatro (Spain) [es]
Mes chers amis (France) [fr]
Meus Caros Amigos (Brazil) [pt]
Moi przyjaciele (Poland) [pl]
Oi entimotatoi filoi mou (Greece) [el]

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:

References Thunderball (1965)

Amusing Italian comedy

My experience of Italian comedy before seeing this film extended only to the sex comedies featuring such beauties as Edwige Fenech and Barbara Bouchet, and although I enjoyed the humour in most of the ones I've seen; I have to admit that generally I enjoyed the films more because of the stars. My Friends is a straight Italian comedy and thus the reliance is on the jokes and situations more than sexy lead stars to sell it; and while I cant say that the film is laugh out loud funny (at least not to my tastes), this is a very good film and certainly one that will appeal to fans of Italian humour. The plot is fairly simple and, as the title suggests, basically just focuses on a group of four friends. They're all middle aged and have good professions (with one exception). They wander around town and get their kicks by pulling pranks and generally annoying people. The film features a number of plot threads; the first of which sees the gang land themselves in hospital and one of them ends up meeting the beautiful wife of the top surgeon.

My Friends is something of a film of two halves and I have to say that I enjoyed the first half more. The tone is always light and breezy although the film does get a bit more ambitious and involving in the second half and that doesn't suit it as well. There doesn't really seem to be a defining point to it; the only one I could see really was the idea of the central characters being older men and still enjoying life. The lead characters are depicted as almost being like children and that's one of the film's biggest running jokes and seeing grown men mess around like the characters in this film has a sort of surreal humour of it's own. The film focuses more on situation than any actual gags and we do get some interesting and well worked scenes that are very funny; seeing a load of middle aged men slapping passengers on a train for example is fun to watch. I would imagine that most of this film's fans are native Italians and I can't see a film like this ever being a big hit outside of it's native country - but for fans of Italian movies, this comedy is a winner.