Croissants à la crème

Director Sergio Martino is probably most famous for his gialli (i.e. "Torso", "All the Colors of Darkness"), but he also has shown quite a gift for comedy. All of his comedies I've seen have been well above average (i.e. not entirely worthless dreck). This one is actually a little light on the naked lovelies (Edwige Fenech only shows off her famous breasts one at a time in two brief scenes, and Michaela Mitti has only a small part as a prostitute pretending to be a nun). The movie is genuinely funny, however, and its humor is based in zany situations and manages to overcome both a relative dearth of skin and the usual atrocious English dubbing job.

A married tailor for the clergy (Lino Banfi) meets a beautiful would-be church singer (Edwige Fenech) on a business trip and convinces her that he is actually his lothario business partner and upstairs neighbor. When she shows up unexpectedly in Rome, he borrows his neighbor's flat and installs her there, trying to carry on an affair while his own neglected wife and son are downstairs. His plan goes horribly awry, however, and he finds himself being deservedly cuckolded.

Banfi is actually far funnier here than he is any of the movies he did with Gloria Guida (although it is hard to fathom how a bald, paunchy older guy like Banfi could get anywhere near a beauty like Fenech). Fenech herself is also a genuinely good comic actress. She probably could have gotten by a lot of the time without taking her clothes off (but I'm sure no one has ever complained that she so often did). Mostly though, I'd credit Sergio Martino, who should really be recognized as one of Italy's best journey-man directors.

This is one of the latest effort of the genre called Italian sexy comedy. this genre came out in mid seventies, direct son of Decamerotico from which takes the job's characters from the Boccaccio. There were the teacher, the colonel, the doctor, the nurse, and a various example of jobs. All was used to show the usual the stereotyped art comedy mask. This genre, riding the sexual liberation of the media in mid seventies, opposed itself to the great Italian comedy of the early 60s and its bitter humor with a chemistry of sex and comedy in different mixtures. During the second half of the seventies there are hundreths of production of which few are really remembered now. One of them is Giovannona Coscialunga (1973) with Edwige Fennech and directed by the eclectic Sergio Martino. After 8 years Martino directs Cornetti alla crema that could be defined (with the earlier Spaghetti a Mezzanotte) the top of the sexy comedy. In this case the stereotyped masks are abandoned and the actors are given a bigger range to show their capabilities. Domenico Petruzzelli, a Lino Banfi in his best interpretation, is a vatican tailor that own a well know factory in rome. His wife (Milena Vukotic from Fantozzi contro tutti) is a typical catholic housewife. His son is fat and stupid, blocked by years at elementary schools. Domenico's aim is to obtain the san Eunorio honor, by his cardinal customer, that would made great his factory. In this bizarre world there's Gabriele Arcangelo (a Gianni Cavina well fitting in the shoulder role) who, despite his name, is a hooker addicted and lives on the upper floor of Domenico, disturbing not less the calm life of his family; still Domenico and Gabriele are very good friends. Edwige Fennech plays Marianna, a opera singer wannabe, that would become Domenico's lover... Well the movie is a must see. Behind this regular life patterns hide an incredible amounts of gags and situations that will climax in which the 2 protagonist will switch identity in the face of Marianna. I love this movie and I saw it first at 8 years old and I remember I laughed for the whole movie. Probably not really understandable by foreign but i advice this gem to everyone that wanna laugh

past month i've sent some comments (3, i seem) about italian films and they were not published. i perfectly agree about your right to publish or not my opinions in your pages but i think that you are obliged to reply. i shall never send any other comment.