Nero Wolfe

Great Italian take on actual Rex Stout books. Wonderful english subtitles.

Leave it to the Italians to figure out how to portray Nero Wolfe. The American versions of this classic crime-solving recluse tend to portray Wolfe as morbidly obese - Jabba the Hutt with brains. This series, set in Rome, casts Francesco Pannofino as an overweight gourmand with definite cholesterol problems, but limber enough to be a step ahead of the criminals and the police in unveiling the murderer. His legs, eyes, and ears to the outer world is private investigator Archie Goodwin. Portrayed by Pietro Sermonti, this Archie is modernized and often steals the show. He still flirts with the ladies and sleeps with some of them, but respects their boundaries. You wouldn't think that transplanting Wolfe and Archie to Rome would work, but it does. The plots keep you guessing, the acting is excellent, you will salivate over the gourmet dishes, and there is the fantastic scenery of Rome as a stunning backdrop. Too bad they only made one season of this excellent series.

RAI did a great job transplanting Nero Wolfe from NY to Rome. The show Italianizes Rex Stout's characters, but it had to for the characters to fit into their new venue, and for the Italian audience to relate to the characters. The change in the stories is also a temporal change. Stout created Nero Wolfe in 1934, at the height of the Great Depression. The Italian adaptation takes place in 1959. Stout created Wolfe as a fantasy for his Depression-era readers. Wolfe was wealthy and was able to obtain justice at a time when the readers were mostly poor and unable to remedy the many injustices around them. The RAI version doesn't allow Wolfe to function that way. The Italianized Archie Goodwin is more sophisticated and suave than the Stout version. Wolfe's cook is no longer Swiss but is the marvelous Italian chef, Nanni Laghi. Archie has an on-again off-again romantic interest in the newspaper reporter, Rosa Perini, with whom he maintains a light-hearted and pleasant flirtation. In summary, very well done. It helps if you can follow in Italian. The subtitles are sometimes lacking.

I think the idea of having Archie Goodwin presented as a man suffering from depression, sullen and resentful toward Wolf is a unique approach. I must say, though, that it is hard to give up on the Archie originally conceived by Stout, a cocky, cheerful, wise guy with a heart of gold.