Ciccio Ingrassia Movies

It's pretty clear that the people who are attending the tenants' management meeting for the low income housing unit they live in are there unwillingly. They don't care about much except their own lives -- certainly not maintaining their building. When a new tenant, Carlo Delle Piane, arrives at the meeting dressed in a suit and looking like a kind of boss, the tenants' association immediately appoints him as the apartment administrator. To their astonishment, he takes his responsibilities seriously, and at least a little in their lives begins to improve. Vignettes in the lives of the tenants flesh out this dark comedy, as some experience hardship and suffering, and others gain reason for a bit of hope. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Lupo (Paolo Hendrel) and Edo (Giovanni Guidelli) take to the swamps after robbing a wealthy Italian in this neo-western comedy. They are pursued by the victim's son and three Austrian mercenaries. The duo goes through several memorable adventures as they encounter many offbeat characters in their travels as fugitives. ~ Dan Pavlides, 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

In the mid-'70s, Ciccio Ingrassia had a falling out with partner Franco Franchi -- with whom he co-starred in numerous popular "Franco and Ciccio" comedies before and after the quarrel -- and set out on his own, directing himself in this fairly amusing parody. Mimmo Baldi plays Luigi, the overweight son of a town mayor (Lino Banfi), who finds an amulet and takes it home. The demons inside it begin possessing the entire family. Ingrassia stars as a conman who pretends to be an exorcist, but ends up possessed as well. At one point, a Franchi impersonator is defenestrated, illustrating the depth of Ingrassia's feelings at the time. Ubaldo Lay co-stars with Tano Cimarosa and Didi Perego, and cultists will recognize Salvatore Baccaro (La Bestia in Calore, El Castello dell'Orrore) in a typically bizarre role. Well photographed by Guglielmo Mancori, although Marino Onorati's screenplay may not be very funny to those unfamiliar with the rather insular nature of many Italian comedies. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide

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

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

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

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

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