Juste un gigolo

Maybe Luciano Salce will be reminded as the director of "Fantozzi " (1975) and "Prof. Dott. Guido Tersilli..." (1969), but he made a lot of very funny and not-banal italian commedies. This "Basta Guardarla" is one of better movies about the "avanspettacolo", the kind of entertainment theatre very famous in Italy in the 40's and 50's. The story is very simple. A young and very nice country girl joins to a little theatrical team, provoking jealousies and gossips around herself. A very good Carlo Giuffrè, a sweet Maria Grazia Buccella, a divine Franca Valeri, a charmant Luciano Salce.

Great humour, freedom, subtlness, extremely cool acting, perfect script, full of surreal melò-dramatic scenes. It is a very very bizarre and funny comedy, much before Almodovar, here there is something which combines self conscious trash Italian comedy with high intellectual humour, some Fellinian-Scola like touch and ironical kitch musical passages. Luciano Salce is still too much underrated as director and actor as well. Giuffrè, Melato, Buccella and Salce himself fit their roles at their best. Look for the final hospital sequence. This film is surprising and deserves to be among other masterpieces as 'L'armata Brancaleone' and 'Il dramma della gelosia'. FC