Macaroni

Tonight I had much to study and very little feeling for my books. I watched this film instead: I vaguely remembered it had a poor IMDb rating, but I decided to give it a chance anyway. I'm so glad I did! I found out a delightful bitter-sweet comedy, with some good laughs and a few touching moments as well. To be true the plot about the depressed American businessman who comes to Italy and discovers the enjoyment of life has been heard before and could seem sometimes predictable, but has its great moments; the score is rather charming too. Marcello and Jack are a magnificent paring. This film is vastly and wrongfully underrated. I can't believe it's only rated 6.1: it would deserve much more. I highly recommend it to anybody loves truly great artists like Lemmon and Mastroianni.

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.

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.

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.

Two incredible actors team up for this tender film about two World War II buddies who are reunited in modern day Naples only to find that Antonio (Mastroianni)has been forging letters to his sister from Robert (Lemmon) since the war ended. It was his way of helping her forget the American who left her behind. Worth viewing for the fantastic chemistry between both stars.