Gib dem Affen Zucker

This is probably the best film starring Adriano Celentano, with the beautiful Ornella Muti by his side. Obviously, the script is all written around Celentano's personality, who is acting just by being himself, saying his classic, stupid jokes, that I personally find irresistible. If you are keen on him, you must see it, but even if you don't like him that much, this is a nice, funny light comedy.

I first saw this movie in a cinema in Milan when it came out - I'm pretty sure it was early 1982, rather than 1981 - and although there were no sub-titles (my Italian is rudimentary, at best), the movie was pretty easy to follow ...

It's essentially a low-brow take on ROMAN HOLIDAY, with the gorgeous Ornella in the Audrey Hepburn "runaway princess" role. Celentanos' contribution, as the"cool" bus driver with all the answers, is entertaining, but I'm at a bit of a loss to understand why this lugubrious, slightly over-aged and balding guy was such a super-star at the time in his native Italy. Maybe it was something to do with his massively successful earlier career as a pop-star ...

Muti, on the other hand, commands the screen whenever she's on. Granted, she's not the best actress in the world, but the camera loves her and her sunny on-screen persona pretty much carries the film.

My DVD copy of this doesn't have English sub-titles either, but even so, it was a lot of fun to spend 100 minutes in the company of one of the most beautiful women in international cinema.