Until yesterday "Avanti!" was that film that I could never finish. I tried in 2009 and then 2014... I think I can pinpoint the exact moment where my memory starts fading: right after Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills impersonate the little mermaid on that rock in the Mediterranean sea, where she's happily harboring her nipples on the Bay of Naples.
I suspect these parts come after ninety minutes, a reasonable runtime for a comedy but that scene, as Churchill would say, isn't merely the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. I second reviewers who say the film tries too much our patience and it's one of these instances that no matter how good the material was or the cast (and it was a good cast, and a good material, albeit a bit morally compromised), less would've been better.
Lemmon plays the kind of stuck-up businessman whose names are generally followed with a number, he arrives in the seaside resort of Ischia to retrieve the body of his recently deceased father. He meets in his way an English tourist named Pamela Piggot (Mills) who's later revealed to be coming for a similar reason, only it's her mother who died in the same car accident that killed his father. Naturally, all the set-ups indicate the comical destination: the discovery that the well-respected conservative Baltimore patriarch didn't exactly come to Ischia seeking the invigorating effects of mud baths or to cure the gout.
The treatment of infidelity marks a departure in Billy Wilder's work: what was treated as a sinful crime in "Double Indemnity", a comical fling in "The Seven-Year Itch" or one of masculinity's ugliest traits in "The Apartment", becomes an enchanting autumnal romance caressed by the Italian summer breeze. So this time the joke is on Lemmon and since he starts as a straitlaced WASP devoted to his marriage and family and trying to hide the ugly truths about his father, we can only hear the little plot mechanisms tracing his arc toward the 'right' direction.
And that direction is obviously embodied (and boy, does the film insist on the body!) by Pamela who knew about the liaison and can only look at the romantic side of it, even suggesting to get rid of all the repatriation red tape and let the two lovers be buried in the city where their loved blossomed each of the last ten years, from July 15 to August 15. Now, I'm as romantic as the next guy and I didn't expect their animosity to prevail, the issue is that there's never any indication that Willie lives an unhappy marital life and Lemmon plays the 'straight' car way too aggressively to assume that the door of his heart is open.
Sure the contrast with the more free-spirited Pamela is fun to watch and the diplomatic patience of Clive Rivelli as the Hotel manager Carlo Carlucci (he really had me think he was a real Italian) creates great interactions and Lemmon's timing is impeccable, his stuttering and mimics make him the perfect target for sitcom-like gags, but sometimes he's too good for the film's own good... and doesn't transition as smoothly as one would expect.
The gags are all there and the little quips and wits about cultural differences between Italians and Americans, all impregnated by the context of the early 70s, are well-engineered by a I. A. L Diamond and Wilder who know to use stereotypes without abusing them. But there's something strange in that Lemmon going all Walter Matthau at times and being so oblivious to the things happening around that he switches intermittently from the straight guy to an angry clown. Juliet Mills is more natural, constant and seems like a good-hearted person but her feelings for Willie are left unclear: does she really like him or is she trying to emulate her own mother, pursuing her romance as a way to cope with her death?
Many reviewers point out the moral aspect of the plot, my other issue is that the film deals with people in early stages of mourning, so you'd never know how sane is the emotional balance, how sincerely enamored they are.
Maybe that's why the original material was doomed from the start and Samuel Taylor's play was cancelled after 21 days, there's something slightly disturbing in a romance blossoming over graveyards like dandelions, a cynicism that was never Wilder's trademark. Maybe he's trying to much to get in with the sexual revolution tide... and so we have to endure the sight of a naked Lemmon not once but twice, seriously, the nudity is overplayed along with the comments on Pamela's weight.
It's a foregone conclusion that the two will 'consummate' but Wilder and Diamond makes the film a little more labyrinthine than needed: after the first 'nude' scene, we get to the subplot involving Bruno, the peeping-tom valet and his wife and that was a sorry miscalculation, for one thing we don't really care about them and the maid is made so outrageously ugly with that mustache the joke is more revolting than funny. Yes, every plot element serves another but there are thirty minutes of the film that could easily be cut.
There are some great shots that bring a sort of 'dolce vita' touch, the "Permesso! Avanti" is a cute running gag waiting for Lemmon to finally "Avanti" a little... but there are too many needless complications, too many characters who, no matter how enjoyable they are (Edward Andrews is one of them) come way too late, and Lemmon's romantic epiphany too abruptly to be believable.
It's a weird romance where a man isn't supposed to have feelings and when he does, it's so contrived the mazy plot didn't even serve its purpose. There are great one-liners and Lemmon is good at playing fish-out-of-the-water like in "The Out-of-Towners" but Arthur Hiller's travel-comedy has one edge over "Avanti!", its heart was at the right place.
I suspect these parts come after ninety minutes, a reasonable runtime for a comedy but that scene, as Churchill would say, isn't merely the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. I second reviewers who say the film tries too much our patience and it's one of these instances that no matter how good the material was or the cast (and it was a good cast, and a good material, albeit a bit morally compromised), less would've been better.
Lemmon plays the kind of stuck-up businessman whose names are generally followed with a number, he arrives in the seaside resort of Ischia to retrieve the body of his recently deceased father. He meets in his way an English tourist named Pamela Piggot (Mills) who's later revealed to be coming for a similar reason, only it's her mother who died in the same car accident that killed his father. Naturally, all the set-ups indicate the comical destination: the discovery that the well-respected conservative Baltimore patriarch didn't exactly come to Ischia seeking the invigorating effects of mud baths or to cure the gout.
The treatment of infidelity marks a departure in Billy Wilder's work: what was treated as a sinful crime in "Double Indemnity", a comical fling in "The Seven-Year Itch" or one of masculinity's ugliest traits in "The Apartment", becomes an enchanting autumnal romance caressed by the Italian summer breeze. So this time the joke is on Lemmon and since he starts as a straitlaced WASP devoted to his marriage and family and trying to hide the ugly truths about his father, we can only hear the little plot mechanisms tracing his arc toward the 'right' direction.
And that direction is obviously embodied (and boy, does the film insist on the body!) by Pamela who knew about the liaison and can only look at the romantic side of it, even suggesting to get rid of all the repatriation red tape and let the two lovers be buried in the city where their loved blossomed each of the last ten years, from July 15 to August 15. Now, I'm as romantic as the next guy and I didn't expect their animosity to prevail, the issue is that there's never any indication that Willie lives an unhappy marital life and Lemmon plays the 'straight' car way too aggressively to assume that the door of his heart is open.
Sure the contrast with the more free-spirited Pamela is fun to watch and the diplomatic patience of Clive Rivelli as the Hotel manager Carlo Carlucci (he really had me think he was a real Italian) creates great interactions and Lemmon's timing is impeccable, his stuttering and mimics make him the perfect target for sitcom-like gags, but sometimes he's too good for the film's own good... and doesn't transition as smoothly as one would expect.
The gags are all there and the little quips and wits about cultural differences between Italians and Americans, all impregnated by the context of the early 70s, are well-engineered by a I. A. L Diamond and Wilder who know to use stereotypes without abusing them. But there's something strange in that Lemmon going all Walter Matthau at times and being so oblivious to the things happening around that he switches intermittently from the straight guy to an angry clown. Juliet Mills is more natural, constant and seems like a good-hearted person but her feelings for Willie are left unclear: does she really like him or is she trying to emulate her own mother, pursuing her romance as a way to cope with her death?
Many reviewers point out the moral aspect of the plot, my other issue is that the film deals with people in early stages of mourning, so you'd never know how sane is the emotional balance, how sincerely enamored they are.
Maybe that's why the original material was doomed from the start and Samuel Taylor's play was cancelled after 21 days, there's something slightly disturbing in a romance blossoming over graveyards like dandelions, a cynicism that was never Wilder's trademark. Maybe he's trying to much to get in with the sexual revolution tide... and so we have to endure the sight of a naked Lemmon not once but twice, seriously, the nudity is overplayed along with the comments on Pamela's weight.
It's a foregone conclusion that the two will 'consummate' but Wilder and Diamond makes the film a little more labyrinthine than needed: after the first 'nude' scene, we get to the subplot involving Bruno, the peeping-tom valet and his wife and that was a sorry miscalculation, for one thing we don't really care about them and the maid is made so outrageously ugly with that mustache the joke is more revolting than funny. Yes, every plot element serves another but there are thirty minutes of the film that could easily be cut.
There are some great shots that bring a sort of 'dolce vita' touch, the "Permesso! Avanti" is a cute running gag waiting for Lemmon to finally "Avanti" a little... but there are too many needless complications, too many characters who, no matter how enjoyable they are (Edward Andrews is one of them) come way too late, and Lemmon's romantic epiphany too abruptly to be believable.
It's a weird romance where a man isn't supposed to have feelings and when he does, it's so contrived the mazy plot didn't even serve its purpose. There are great one-liners and Lemmon is good at playing fish-out-of-the-water like in "The Out-of-Towners" but Arthur Hiller's travel-comedy has one edge over "Avanti!", its heart was at the right place.