Totò cerca casa

I saw this movie last week on TV, while being in Italy for a family matter. I enjoyed every single minute of that ancient but truly good and effective "Italian style" comedy. Totò steals every scene and some times he doesn't really need to do a thing to become funny. His face, expressions and speech can do most of the half of the movie. Of course the other actors also played correctly their parts and there was no real hole because of the script or the performances. I must admit that some comic situations can be a little forced and somehow previsible, but none of them were absolutely unnecessary. Totò also made very good movies along his career, but not all were as remarkable as this.

I said I was in Italy when I saw and that's not for free: if you can, try to see (and hear) Totò's movies in the original version, that's MUCH better.

After watching this movie my first impulse was to trash it, but as I thought more about it I realized that there were many things about it that I enjoyed. I'll talk about some of the positives and negatives.

First, it's always a pleasure to sit down with Totò. Even at his worst he is smile inducing. Here he was more than just smile inducing even though not always laugh out loud funny.

There is a very strong cast of supporting characters in this film. As ever, I'm very happy to see Mario Castellani show up. I wish he could have had a bigger part. He's an excellent straight man and his supporting style often seems perfect to draw the most out of Totò's performance. A young and beautiful Marisa Merlini had a small part that I really enjoyed, even though the premise of the scene was a bit overly silly. Many other supporting characters did a good job. Some others could have easily been left out.

I thought the scene in the graveyard caretaker's house was pretty funny where Totò who is covered in white paint meets up with his wife wearing face cream and they mistake each other for ghosts.

The movie was a bit frenetic and didn't always transition well from scene to scene. The hold-that-tiger ending had a couple of fun moments but probably could have been cut.

Totò tried to recreate the extremely funny Harpo Marx stamp scene from Monkey Business but it didn't work well because Totò's comic attitude is different than Harpo's. Harpo has the comic attitude of a chaotic toddler who has absolutely no concern for consequences. Totò is every bit as funny as Harpo but has a comic style of an older person.

There were a couple of jokes that were slightly racist and culturally insensitive and I enjoyed them very much. When watching films from another time we have to be understanding of that time and not necessarily judge them by current standards.

The director and the writers threw the kitchen sink at this movie. Sometimes it was overwhelming but sometimes it worked and at least they gave it a shot.

I can't say that I recommend this movie but it does have some redeeming qualities.