Veteran director Mario Monicelli deals with the issues of several Italian (actual, future or probable) fathers in Italy's postwar years. The central plot revolves around the teenage romance of two high school students, Sandro and Marcella, and its effects once it becomes known to the respective fathers (Vittorio Bacci, a wealthy doctor with another spoiled and lazy adult son, and Vincenzo Corallo, a widowed tailor with a roving eye and a gambling addiction). The side shows are Guifo and Giulia, a driving school instructor (and anxious father-to-be) tormented by his demanding wife, and the zookeeper Amerigo and his wife Ines, a private nurse, blessed with five little children, one of which gets "parked" to his childless aunt Rita's house when one of his siblings goes down with measles, thus altering her family dynamics in an unexpected way.
Ruggero Marchi, as usual, excels at portraying the character of the grumpy and overbearing father, in this case a doctor whose teenage son falls in love with the tailor's daughter, while Academy Award winner Vittorio De Sica plays a character very alike to his real self (with reference to his own gambling habits), who at first dismisses his daughter's fling as "puppy love" but, once he realizes (by taking her measurements for her new dress) that his "daddy's little girl" has turned into a woman, becomes her undercover ally to help her boyfriend win over his stern father's objections, and the scene in the billiard parlor in which, while pretending to be a casual stranger, he dispenses his useful advice to the boy, is probably one of the best in the movie.
Franco Interlenghi and Antonella Lualdi play the newlyweds dealing with the upcoming birth of their first child (which provides an unexpected plot twist at the very end of the movie), while time-tested character actors Memmo Carotenuto and Marisa Merlini are unsurpassed in their comedic dealings with a bunch of unruly children.
Marcello Mastroianni, not yet propelled to stardom by Federico Fellini, plays Cesare, an aircraft mechanic whose marital relationship soured because of his wife's infertility. His chemistry with child actor Franco Di Trocchio, who plays his kid nephew, provides some of the movie's most endearing scenes. In the end Cesare and his wife Rita will decide to adopt a child.
The movie, although a comedy, has some moments of reflections about the hardship of being a father in an era where children seem to grow faster and less respectful of parental authority. This is summarized by Ruggero Marchi's character, called to the police station after his wayward older son Vezio (played by comedian Raffaele Pisu, whose voice in the movie is dubbed by Nino Manfredi) has been arrested for trying to scam a retired colonel. Confronted by his failure at raising his child to be a responsible adult, and resigning himself to see his own name soiled by his son's probable criminal prosecution, he rants about the difficulty of being a parent. "Children are born children, and it's up to their fathers to raise them into adulthood. But nobody teaches fathers about how to be fathers!".
Although the doctor's wayward son Vezio will be spared jail, thanks mostly to his father's impassioned speech which prompts the colonel to withdraw criminal charges, he won't be spared being drafted in the Army (for which his father had previously obtained a deferment on medical grounds) and be assigned to the brutal boot camp of "Bersaglieri" assault troops (presumably by intercession of his intended victim).
The final scene sees Vittorio and Vincenzo, once again called to meet their respective children's high school principal for disciplinary issues, walking from the school, with Vincenzo doing his best to convince his counterpart to let their children date each other - under condition of not neglecting their studies - and telling him: "Let them get engaged with each other, maybe even married with each other, and we'll see - once they will become parents themselves - if they will be able to do better than we did!".
Ruggero Marchi, as usual, excels at portraying the character of the grumpy and overbearing father, in this case a doctor whose teenage son falls in love with the tailor's daughter, while Academy Award winner Vittorio De Sica plays a character very alike to his real self (with reference to his own gambling habits), who at first dismisses his daughter's fling as "puppy love" but, once he realizes (by taking her measurements for her new dress) that his "daddy's little girl" has turned into a woman, becomes her undercover ally to help her boyfriend win over his stern father's objections, and the scene in the billiard parlor in which, while pretending to be a casual stranger, he dispenses his useful advice to the boy, is probably one of the best in the movie.
Franco Interlenghi and Antonella Lualdi play the newlyweds dealing with the upcoming birth of their first child (which provides an unexpected plot twist at the very end of the movie), while time-tested character actors Memmo Carotenuto and Marisa Merlini are unsurpassed in their comedic dealings with a bunch of unruly children.
Marcello Mastroianni, not yet propelled to stardom by Federico Fellini, plays Cesare, an aircraft mechanic whose marital relationship soured because of his wife's infertility. His chemistry with child actor Franco Di Trocchio, who plays his kid nephew, provides some of the movie's most endearing scenes. In the end Cesare and his wife Rita will decide to adopt a child.
The movie, although a comedy, has some moments of reflections about the hardship of being a father in an era where children seem to grow faster and less respectful of parental authority. This is summarized by Ruggero Marchi's character, called to the police station after his wayward older son Vezio (played by comedian Raffaele Pisu, whose voice in the movie is dubbed by Nino Manfredi) has been arrested for trying to scam a retired colonel. Confronted by his failure at raising his child to be a responsible adult, and resigning himself to see his own name soiled by his son's probable criminal prosecution, he rants about the difficulty of being a parent. "Children are born children, and it's up to their fathers to raise them into adulthood. But nobody teaches fathers about how to be fathers!".
Although the doctor's wayward son Vezio will be spared jail, thanks mostly to his father's impassioned speech which prompts the colonel to withdraw criminal charges, he won't be spared being drafted in the Army (for which his father had previously obtained a deferment on medical grounds) and be assigned to the brutal boot camp of "Bersaglieri" assault troops (presumably by intercession of his intended victim).
The final scene sees Vittorio and Vincenzo, once again called to meet their respective children's high school principal for disciplinary issues, walking from the school, with Vincenzo doing his best to convince his counterpart to let their children date each other - under condition of not neglecting their studies - and telling him: "Let them get engaged with each other, maybe even married with each other, and we'll see - once they will become parents themselves - if they will be able to do better than we did!".