Beato tra le donne

in essence, nice slice from "70's. atmosphere, songs, dance, relationship. at the first few, a film of Louis de Funes, not real different by many others. but this is its great virtue - a story like pretext, the little tyrannic boss and the young women with plots, secrets, charm, Olivier de Funes in middle of feelings, surprises , using teenager humor, clichés - the Sicilian family - confusion and the clear sky. all the tricks of French cinema. and the same force of seduction. because it is nice, amusing, almost lovely. and because the admiration for the work of de Funes remains at high level. this detail is the most important. and the feeling after the end of film. like delicate flavor of a lost innocent age. so, a good option for relax.

This is a rather obscure movie of De Funes even in France in spite of it is one of his best.

What makes the difference is not the comedy because he is as funny as ever but his compassionate side that we don't see very often. This wasn't a surprise because in interviews, you can see that he was a formidable gentleman even having tremendous success. But, there are only a few movies in which he shows his kindness.

Here, it begins with the relation that he shares with his real son in life, Olivier. They are nearly the only men in the movie and they are great together. As a father, De Funes is very attentive and caring. And for sure, the scenes he had with the babies are moving: he is totally sweet!

In addition, the movie is an explosion of colors and it is an amazing collection of how the 70's, the flower power had impacted on France. Except maybe in "Dick Tracy", I haven't seen so much orange, yellow, red, black, blue…

At last, the movie offers a great trip in romantic place: Montecarlo, Roma…

For a movie which is a musical comedy, with dance, songs, music, ballets, I am totally appreciative! Bidibidi-BA!

For lovers of this great french comedian this movie is best watched with the remote control in one hand. The story is the typical mix of little choleric Louis (playing the director of an all girl dancing group) who tries to shield them from other men so that the girls won't be distracted from their job. There are a couple of well directed scenes that provide good laughs and Louis delivers the whole range of his facial expressions that alone makes you giggle. However this time the script seems to have lacked enough ideas for a full movie, therefore you will have to sit through plenty of dancing and music and even an almost unbearable singing scene where Louis de Funes sings musical-like. Approx. half of the movie time is being consumed by music, dance and singing only - too much for a comedy.

Therefore my advice: skip those dull scenes with the fast forward of your remote control and have a good laugh at Louis while he is really acting (and not dancing or singing).

Music, Choreography, humor, style are great in this movie. It is unusually funny film with great performances.

It's obvious that if you're looking for plausible plots in any of Funes' movies aren't the right place to look for. Especially his film is all about the incredible camera and lighting, staging and set design. About the beautiful girls dancing and wearing classic 60ies outfits. In fact it's all about the dancing scenes. The idea having a conversation via singing is purely operatic, used to the extreme by Jacques Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg) and again in a different more Funesque way by Alain Resnais in On connaît la chanson!

The film looks like it's shot in Technicolor though in the credits only Eastmancolor is mentioned - a film stock unfortunately not available anymore. The colors this film stock produces are to die for - check also i.e. Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series all shot too in Eastmancolor.

Watch it and then watch it again;-)