Le cancre du bahut

This movie, like the bulk of Italian movies of the period, is full of "borderline humor" that consistently borders on what some may call "poor taste". But that is exactly what makes this movie such a laugh riot! This is the type of movie where beautiful women get their dresses torn off by passing buses, blinds fly up at the wrong time and almost nothing is sacred.

Pierino, played by comic genius, Alviro Vitalli, is a juvenile who is determined to drive everybody up the wall, from his older sister at home, to the administration of his school.

Nothing is sacred and nobody in authority is safe from Pierino's pranks. Pierino will go to any length to torment his tormenters. For example, he walked past the school director with an "invisible dog" leash. The director asked him what he was doing. "Oh, walking my dog" replied Pierino. The director thought the "invisible dog" leash was Pierino's prank, until he turned around and saw some doggie droppings that Pierino had placed in the hall.

Pierino cannot stand his teacher, so he drives her up the wall until she quits. Then a new teacher comes in, who has Pierino head over heals in love. But does that mean he becomes a model student? Well, not quite.

A knowledge of the Italian language is required to understand the humor in this movie. It is a shame that there isn't a translated version of this movie. But if your ability to understand Italian isn't quite that good, there is still enough slapstick humor to leave you screaming in wild fits of hysterics.

If you're familiar with low-brow 70's Italian sex comedies (and why would you be?), you might know that the most low-brow of the bunch were the the "insegnante" series, where Edwige Fenech plays a ridiculously sexy schoolteacher, and the "liceale" series, where Gloria Guida plays a ridiculously sexy high school student. While both of these series were done by the same group of directors (i.e. Mario Laurenti, Michele Tarantini, Marino Girolami), strangely, the "insegnante" never met the "liceale" on-screen (thus passing up a golden opportunity to for a stern Fenech to administer a good sound spanking to a petulant Guida). What both of these series DID share, however, was the dubious comic stylings of Alvaro Vitali, who sometimes played a teacher, but usually played the oldest and goofiest-looking high school student in the history of public education.

For better or worse, this particular film is the Alvaro Vitali show all the way. Neither Fenech nor Guida is in it. Vitali here has apparently been sent back to junior high school, so all his classmates are basically children. And what we have is basically a 70's Italian forerunner to Adam Sandler's "Billy Madison". "Pierino", Vitali's character, is a literal man-child who likes to play pranks on and insult everybody around him. He has a flatulent grandfather, a doting mother, an uptight older sister, and a harried restaurateur father. He goes to school with children, but he's also mature enough to root around in the bushes with a willing high school lass and to fall madly in lust with his incredibly sexy substitute teacher (he keeps arranging "accidents" for the regular teacher to keep the substitute coming back). Here though he has some competition from the studly male phys.ed.teacher.

Vitali is not as annoying as he can be, and occasionally he is genuinely funny in this. Michaela Mitti, who plays the sexy substitute, is a third-rate Fenech or a second-rate Guida when it comes to being a comedienne, but she definitely has a first-rate body like the two more famous actresses. Generally though, while this movie has a lot of "adult" humor, it doesn't have as much sex or nudity as some of the other films in the "insegnante"/"liceale" series. It's actually pretty appropriate for a 13-year-old audience (or at least for those who are 13-years-old at heart). Incredibly, this has gotten a recent English-language DVD release, so while it's certainly not my personal cup of tea and I can't exactly rave about it, it's pretty easy to see at least, and as good as place as any to start if you just want to get a taste of goofy 70's Italian sex comedies.