Maccheroni

This film came and went too quickly in 1985, but I was fortunate enough to see it in a movie theater at the time, and later to get the video of it. Jack Lemmon is an American business executive on a business trip to Naples (where he was stationed in World War II). He is a crabby, middle aged man, who has financial success but has lost a sense of enjoyment in life. Reenter his old friend Marcello Mastroianni, whose sister was once dating Lemmon. Lemmon is at first suspicious and standoffish (he barely recalls Mastroianni) but his curiosity makes him take up Mastroianni again. The latter is a clerk in a bank, but he is a part-time actor and dramatist, and the center of a large family group. He also has had an odd habit of dying and being resurrected again, since childhood. Lemmon gradually finds his humanity being restored, and finding he wants to be re-involved with his old friend's family. The conclusion veers to tragedy, but the conclusion is very sweet. I recommend this film strongly, to people who wish to believe.

My review was written in October 1985 after watching the film at a Columbus Circle screening room.

"Macaroni" is a mild comedy-drama teaming the formidable talents of Jack Lemmon and Marcello Mastroianni. Stronger in expression of honest sentiment than in its humorous component, the picture faces weak theatrical prospects via Paramount release as a pickup. It was originally scheduled to be an HBO Premiere Films presentation domestically (a slot it would fill comfortably) until the pay-cable outfit dropped out of the project.

Jack Lemmon toplines as Bob Traven (the joke on the mysterious novelist B. Traven's name is never explicit here), a v.p. At McDonnell Douglas visiting Naples as a consultant to Aeritalia. It's his first time back since 1946 when, as a G.i., he was stationed there.

As an acquaintance from that period whom he has completely forgotten, Antonio Jasiello (Marcello Mastroianni) looks Traven up and takes the at-first unwilling (too busy) American around town to meet the family and friends.

It seems that everybody knows Traven, because Jasiello has been surreptitiously writing letters using Traven's name over the years to his own sister Maria, who had a brief romance in 1946 with the American. She's long-since been married and now has adult grandchildren.

Relying too heavily on its two stars, at first abrasive adversaries but later best of friends as Lemmon unbends to Mastroianni's exuberant joie de vivre, "Macaroni" rarely achieves the comedic heights of director Ettore Scola's previous work. There simply isn't an abundance of funny situations or witty dialog here.

Best sequence has amateur playwright Mastroianni filling in as the villain in one of his monthly poverty productions. Heavily made-up (and looking oddly like the late Ernie Kovacs), Mastroianni is genuinely funny in the brief skit acted with Italian dialog.

Elsewhere, this English-language film is hampered by the dialog, with merely okay readings by Mastroianni, artificial dubbing of Isa Danieli as his empathetic wife and rote, direct-sound speeches by Daria Nicolodi as Aeritalia's p.r. Officer. Thesps' acting is okay but diluted by the language distraction.

Lemmon throws himself into his role with customary passion, pumping life into some routine scenes. Pic would have benefited from some period flashback material set in 1946 (especially given Scola's work in his 1974 "We All Loved Each Other So Much") but is rooted in the present. A contrived, melancholy ending doesn't come off.

Tech credits are merely adequate, with Naples' natural beauty shining through Claudio Ragona's strictly functional photography.

I lived in Naples at the time and those Americans who did loved this movie. There were many inside jokes that you could only know about if living or have lived in Italy. However, my sister saw it having never been in Naples and thought it was both touching and Naples. The people and and the city is really like it. Jack Lemmon doesn't play his typical character but plays straight man to the city and the people of Naples and seeing his reaction to this strange world of people and back alleys is hilarious. The movie reminds me a little of an Neopolitan version of the movie Cannery Row but much more funnier. Most Americans hate Naples until after a few months living there an then love it. The movie captures that spirit. Well worth seeing especially if you ever want to visit bella Napoli. I agree with the previous comment that the movie came and went all too fast...a sleeper.

The conceit of this odd little film is that to experience family love the late-middle-aged American man must return whence he found it -- to Italy of course!

The score is lovely but the sound quality execrable. The comedy hits Americans sideways but the location shots of Naples are breathtaking. (What can Florence be like?)

The storyline is all over the place but then it doesn't matter because we are spellbound by every scene where Lemmon and Mastroianni are together. Both are at the top of their form, not out of any sense of competing, but rather out of respect -- to their characters, to their director, and to each other.

Lemmon is the most restrained I've ever seen him. His tendency to be seen working is quelled, perhaps, by Mastroianni's generous willingness to cede the center of the stage.

So what we have is a little movie with a somewhat pretentious theme that nevertheless, because of its idiosyncrasies and contradictions, and especially because of the performances of its leads, is well worth viewing.

Lemmon and Mastronianni...what can I say? This is an explosive mixture, one of the best European actors with one of the best American actors.... no comments. Both their roles are great and did not expect less. From the movie I was expecting a different ending although it was not disappointing it left me with the bitter taste. Good comic and drama mix of Scolla.