Ugo Tognazzi's admirable skills as a fast-talking con man comedian (nicely teamed with Raimondo Vianello) are on display in this extremely dated situation comedy ostensibly tied to the 1960 Rome Olympic Games. As an artifact, its main interest beyond watching Tognazzi in action is how it demonstrates the changes that have occurred over the decades in what is considered risque and what is in poor taste.
He plays a newspaper reporter, with Raimondo as his pal and staff photographer for the paper, who keep getting into trouble due to their womanizing, cheating on their wives. During the Olympics, Ugo's wife and family are on vacation, allowing him to fool around (with his apartment empty) while they're away.
Immediately obvious is the central comedy premise: that Italian men stick together when it comes to sex outside of marriage; even Ugo's boss, the paper's editor, has to keep coming to his defense when wives start asking serious questions about what their husbands have been doing.
But the central comedy motif turns out to be an endless mocking of German tourists in Rome to attend the Olympics, underscoring an uneasy relationship, 15 years after WW II ended, between Italians and the history of their fatal alliance with the Nazis.
It starts off as ridiculous but becomes nearly unwatchable how the movie becomes a full hour of comedy based on not merely the language barrier between the Germans and the Italians but ultimately a silly fabrication that Hitler is still alive, used to fool the wives. I was literally shocked to watch this take over the entire film, leading to the buffoonish German tourists turn out to be neo-Nazis (!), Ugo pretending to have been undercover on the Hitler's Alive story, showing his wife a huge Swastika tattoo on his back, and even a truly idiotic ending of the "real" Hitler showing up, still alive, after the Neo-Nazis attempt to gas our heroes tied up in their apartment, which explodes!
Besides the glut of hundreds if not thousands of strictly local-audience aimed foreign comedies being produced in the 1960s, it's obvious why this one was never imported to America. In fact, Ugo starred in nine comedies in 1960, including two co-starring that memorable American singer Abbe Lane, and none of them (I believe) were exported to the USA.
He plays a newspaper reporter, with Raimondo as his pal and staff photographer for the paper, who keep getting into trouble due to their womanizing, cheating on their wives. During the Olympics, Ugo's wife and family are on vacation, allowing him to fool around (with his apartment empty) while they're away.
Immediately obvious is the central comedy premise: that Italian men stick together when it comes to sex outside of marriage; even Ugo's boss, the paper's editor, has to keep coming to his defense when wives start asking serious questions about what their husbands have been doing.
But the central comedy motif turns out to be an endless mocking of German tourists in Rome to attend the Olympics, underscoring an uneasy relationship, 15 years after WW II ended, between Italians and the history of their fatal alliance with the Nazis.
It starts off as ridiculous but becomes nearly unwatchable how the movie becomes a full hour of comedy based on not merely the language barrier between the Germans and the Italians but ultimately a silly fabrication that Hitler is still alive, used to fool the wives. I was literally shocked to watch this take over the entire film, leading to the buffoonish German tourists turn out to be neo-Nazis (!), Ugo pretending to have been undercover on the Hitler's Alive story, showing his wife a huge Swastika tattoo on his back, and even a truly idiotic ending of the "real" Hitler showing up, still alive, after the Neo-Nazis attempt to gas our heroes tied up in their apartment, which explodes!
Besides the glut of hundreds if not thousands of strictly local-audience aimed foreign comedies being produced in the 1960s, it's obvious why this one was never imported to America. In fact, Ugo starred in nine comedies in 1960, including two co-starring that memorable American singer Abbe Lane, and none of them (I believe) were exported to the USA.
