Franco Franchi Movies
Italian actor Franco Franchi was the clean-shaven half of the international film comedy team Franco and Ciccio (Ciccio Ingrassia was the mustachioed half). It's difficult to determine whether Franco or Ciccio was the straight man because it's hard to figure out which one was the comedian. Watching Franco and Ciccio was like watching Jerry Lewis and Jim Carrey on amphetamines; they seemed to subscribe to the theory that running in circles and screaming incoherently was the pinnacle of comic technique. American audiences might have been spared Franco and Ciccio had it not been for their 1966 vehicle Two Marines and a General, which contained the last performance of the immortal Buster Keaton (as a Nazi general!). Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia could be seen at their most frenetic, playing comic doormen in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs (1966), wherein all comic honors were won hands-down by the villain, Vincent Price. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide- 1961
An episodic, funny, though uneven spoof of human manners and foibles, this comedy by Vittorio de Sica begins in Naples when a disembodied voice announces to the city's residents "The Last Judgment will begin at 6:00 p.m." Naturally, not all are immediately willing to accept this statement -- but not for long. As comic vignettes unfold, the good citizens soon become even better as they try to undo past and present sins, just in case. There is a long list of top actors that show up briefly in the story, everyone from Alberto Sordi to Jimmy Durante, Melina Mercouri, Anouk Aimée, Vittorio Gassmann, and many, many others. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vittorio Gassman, Renato Rascel, (more)
- 1962
The Italian comedy team of Franco and Ciccio spoofs westerns in Due Sergenti del Generale Custer. If it's possible to play the Little Big Horn for laughs, be assured that the stars will give it their best shot. Franco and Ciccio do their usual horrendous mugging and interminable double-talk; sometimes it's funny. This frantic effort was part of an unofficial Franco and Ciccio series, distinguished by such titles as Two Mafiosi versus Goldfinger and Two Marines and a General. The latter film has gained notoriety as the final movie appearance of Buster Keaton. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1962
Seven samurai complicate the lives of 2 men who inherit a Japanese fortune, but they receive help from some beautiful geishas. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1963
Somewhere there is someone who finds the lunatic Italian comedy team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia funny; most filmgoers watch in stony silence, longing for Jerry Lewis to make a comeback. In The Shortest Day, F and C play a pair of zany World War I conscripts who cause more trouble on the front than all the Kaiser's troops combined. To assure international distribution of the Franco and Ciccio films, most of their vehicles featured popular veteran stars in secondary roles. In War Italian Style, Buster Keaton was the unlucky guest performer, while in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs Vincent Price did the box-office duty. The Shortest Day, perhaps in emulation of Darryl Zanuck's somewhat more expensive The Longest Day, has a manifest of 44 celebrity "bit actors:" Walter Pidgeon, Simone Signoret, Sylva Koscina, Steve Reeves, Stewart Granger, David Niven, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Anouk Aimee...There are more, but there's no point in embarrassing the entire motion picture industry. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, (more)
- 1963
Cult icon Lucio Fulci directed this anthology set in a courtroom, where four cases of fraud and confidence are presented. Raimondo Vianello and pretty Dominique Boschero star in the first, a tale of a wealthy businessman accused of fraud. Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia, who starred in ten of their "Franco and Ciccio" comedies for Fulci, play conmen who convince people that they've discovered archaeological treasures and Antonella Lualdi highlights a tale of crooked nuns. Finally, a doctor (Walter Chiari) is implicated in meedical misdeeds. Margaret Lee, Umberto d'Orsi, and horror director Camillo Mastrocinque also appear. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1964
The "salad" crop planted by two unsuspecting men ends up being smoked instead of eaten in this comedy of errors. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1964
Al Capone's gang is joined by 2 new members, undercover New York cops, who place their lives in danger with this mission. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1964
Native Americans and outlaws make life difficult for 2 Sicilian cousins after they inherit a gold mine in Texas. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1964
Made in Italy in 1964 as L'Amore Primitivo, the year after Promises, Promises and a full four years before The Wild Wild World of Jayne Mansfield and her unfortunate death, this is one of the rarest-if not the rarest-Jayne Mansfield movies of all time. The film opens to the immortal strains of "Bella Come Te" as Mansfield-playing herself-checks into a fancy hotel and within five minutes comes up with at least 10 different excuses to disrobe, shower and prance around almost naked. Franco and Ciccio (at the time Italy's top funnymen, who also appeared in Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs and may very well be the two scariest Jerry Lewis imitators of all time) play horny bellhops spying on Mansfield's every move. She eventually settles down, sets up a projector in her room, and invites a very square looking professor into her room to view her new documentary/shock-u-mentary. In the grand tradition of 'mondo' movies Mansfield starts narrating the action as the screen unfolds to show topless Asian women, real animal sacrifices, interracial sex and oriental cock-fighting. Suddenly a witch doctor pounds the drums while a bevy of young girls do the topless Temptation Dance. Then the movie within a movie veers off into hallucination land as Mansfield becomes the native girl and does a breast twirling dance for the drum pounding Franco and Ciccio, featuring one of them twirling his eyebrows in direct sync to Mansfield's breasts. When queried as to the validity of all this wild documentary footage, filmmaker Mansfield espouses that all men, deep down inside, are actually primitive lusting animals. In the explosive finale, she proves her point. While performing a striptease, the bellhops go beserk and the professor turns into a drooling, sex-crazed werewolf. ~ Cub Koda, All Movie Guide
- 1964
Cult Italian filmmaker Lucio Fulci's second "Franco & Ciccio" comedy of 1965, this science fiction-themed farce casts popular comedians Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia as a pair of bumbling Russian cosmonauts aboard the spaceship Popov. Their ship loses contact with base, and Soviet space program officials are loathe to face the international humiliation of losing two astronauts, so they send up a second spaceship, a twin of the first. Locating a pair of Italian thieves (also played by Franchi and Ingrassia) who are dead ringers for the lost cosmonauts, the Russians kidnap them and send them up in the duplicate rocketship. Upon their return, the thieves are welcomed as the real thing by their wives and families, but that's when the confusion begins, as the original spaceship returns with the real cosmonauts, setting up a number of farcical situations. Monica Randal and Linda Sini co-star with Enzo Andronico, Maria Silva, and Lino Banfi (credited here as "Pasquale Zagaria," perhaps to fulfill contractual obligations in the Italian-Spanish co-production). The boys returned under Fulci's direction a month later in I Due Parà. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- 1966
Bumbling criminals attempt an amazing bank robbery. ~ All Movie Guide
- 1966
This WW II comedy centers upon a hapless German general (played by Buster Keaton in one of his last roles) who is stationed in Italy the night before the Allied invasion. Two Yankee POWs are planning to steal the plans for the Nazi offensive strategy. The Germans anticipate this and replace the real ones with phony plans. At least that's what they were supposed to do. Actually a mix-up results in the real plans being left out for the Americans to steal. During the offensive, the two soldiers are captured by the German general. The fellow is rather absent-minded and a tad confused so when the soldiers dress up as Hitler and an SS general, the poor man is totally fooled. Seeing that he isn't too bright, the Americans take pity upon him, disguise him as a scarecrow and help him escape with them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, (more)
- 1966
The Amazing Dr. G is an alternate title for the Italian-American spoof Dr. Goldfoot and His Girl Bombs. Vincent Price repeats his characterization of the megalomaniac Goldfoot from 1965's Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, and also plays a secondary role as a kidnapped US general. This time, Dr. G. intends to undermine America by unleashing an army of voluptuous, exploding female robots. The detonation device is located in the girls' belly buttons, which should indicate the level of humor around these parts. The popular Italian comedy team of Franco and Ciccio do their frenetic best to raise a few yocks. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vincent Price, Fabian, (more)
- 1967
This Italian-Spanish space-age comedy is a tad less subtle than Jerry Lewis, a soupcon less sophisticated than the Three Stooges. Two Soviet cosmonauts become lost in space, apparently permanently. The rascally Russians try to pass off two other space travellers as the missing cosmonauts so as to avoid worldwide embarrassment. The second pair locates the first pair, and then the fun begins. Dos Cosmonautas was directed by Lucio Fulci, exhibiting a commendable willingness to tackle any sort of movie material--even if he isn't quite up to making the most of that material. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Writer/director Luigi Comencini originally created Le Avventure di Pinocchio as a five-and-a-half-hour miniseries for Italian television. This 134-minute version, featuring various guest stars, was released theatrically. Pinocchio (Andrea Balestri) is a wooden puppet carved by Geppetto (Nino Manfredi), who is turned into a little boy by a magical fairy (Gina Lollobrigida). She insists that he be obedient and loving to his father Geppetto, but the rebellious Pinocchio tries to live independently -- and encounters many ordeals, from being turned into a donkey to getting swallowed by a whale. After he and Geppetto escape from the whale, Pinocchio is able to be the good son his father deserves. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide
- 1973
Franco Franchi, best known as half of the comedy duo Franco and Ciccio, stars with cult favorite Martine Beswicke in this crude parody of Bernardo Bertolucci's Ultimo Tango a Parigi. In contrast to the original's brutish Brando, Franchi's character is constantly dominated by the aggressive Beswicke and every other woman in his life, including his cruel wife (Gina Rovere) and a mentally unbalanced filmmaker (Franca Valeri) obviously modeled on Lina Wertmuller. Beswicke steals the show in a predatory variant on Maria Schneider's role, and brings a touch of class to a generally lowbrow production. The humor is primarily of the cheap bathroom variety, as subtlety has never been director Nando Cicero's strong point, but there are some genuine laughs for the tolerant. The English title of the film is Last Tango in Zagarol. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Italy's fraternal filmmaking team of Paolo and Vittorio Taviani whip up another multistoried slice of life in Kaos. "Life," in this case, is seen from the peculiar perspective of author Luigi Pirandello, four of whose pieces are herein adapted. "The Other Son" finds Margarita Lozano making the best of her rocky relationship with her son, who was the product of a rape. "Moonstruck" (no relation to the Cher vehicle of the same name) deals with a newlywed woman who is adversely affected by the full moon. The comedy team of Franco and Ciccio star in "The Jar," a fable concerning a feudal landlord and a merry-prankster jar manufacturer. And in "Conversing with Mother," the Tavianis go their usual route of forcing their characters to face the present by confronting the past by having Pirandello himself (Omero Antonutti) converse with the ghost of his long-departed mother (Regina Bianchi). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Margarita Lozano, Claudio Bigagli, (more)
