Renato Pozzetto Movies

Gianna Abastanza (Mariangelo Melato) is tired of men acting as though they can do everything better than women, so she enters the police force and dons a policewoman's uniform. By following the law more closely than her police comrades and superiors, she soon runs into trouble with them, though this does not prevent love from blossoming. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

After inheriting a faucet factory, Gianluca (Renato Pozzetto) does not have the skills to manage his workers. He is lucky he has the one-man sex machine Luigi (Teo Tocoli) around to show him how to do things. Indeed, so well does he learn his lessons that he leaves the factory behind in favor of wine, women and song. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Paolo Barca is a sophisticate from Milan who is sent to Sicily to teach school. He is also a virgin. When he realizes the extent of his student's ignorance about sex, he makes classroom sex education a priority. This, naturally, creates a furor in conservative Sicily. Ironically, he soon receives lessons in sexuality from his female colleagues. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this slapstick comedy, almost a vaudeville revue, the Italian side of World War II is affectionately re-created, while the cream of Himmler's German troops, the dreaded Stormtroopers, consistently make fools of themselves. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

The main character in this comedy-detective story is Riccardo Finzi, played to the hilt by the real main character, comic Renato Pozzetto. The apparently plodding, Sad Sack-type P.I. has just gotten licensed and arrives in Milan with high hopes, however high they are in his case, of launching his investigative career. A trip to a night spot lands him a place to live in, a nubile young woman, and a murder case when he finds out the next morning that the nymphet has been killed. Finzi has a voluntary assistant in the form of a retired cop (Enzo Cannavale) who helps him make progress in spite of himself. Contempo subjects like left-wing students or terrorism pop up here and there in one-liners, providing humor at unexpected moments. Especially made for an Italian audience familiar with Renato Pozzetto's style and the local references in the script, this fun comedy may still amuse other audiences as well. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Monica Vitti stars as Tina Candela, a housekeeper on trial for murdering her husband. As she recounts her testimony, the jury becomes taken with fantasies about the marriage of the accused. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide

The Italian La Patata Bollente (Hot Potato) casts some light on the intolerances of those involved in "liberal" Italian political and labor organizations. Popular comic-actor Renato Pozzetto plays an ill-tempered "old line" communist union organizer. One evening, he rescues a homosexual (Massimo Ranieri) from a gang of hooligans. The communist allows the poor man to spend the evening in his apartment -- a wholly innocent set-up that is misinterpreted by the communist's girl friend (Edwige Fenech). When word gets out that their leader and the gay man are "shacking up," the members of the allegedly progressive union and their political cohorts are more vociferous than anyone in their condemnation of his "sins." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In back-to-back stories that are unrelated to each other except through a few shared stabs at sexual and social morés, director Nanni Loy and the two featured stars (and co-writers) Renato Pozzetto and Nino Manfredi have fun with some "taboo" themes. In the first story, Don Emidio (Pozzetto) is actually a Catholic priest who suffers amnesia while on a train and ends up falling for an attractive Milanese woman (Mara Venier), leading to a joyful and uninhibited celebration of their romantic natures -- at least for several blissful days. In the second story, a widowed father is a brash construction worker whose favorite hobby is bragging about his son's great accomplishments as a soccer player. Dad's world is about to be jarred into another dimension when his macho son finally tells him about his true sexual orientation. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this comedy, the ever-resourceful Alfio (Carlo Verdone) and his pal Silvano (Renato Pozzetto) are medical school graduates who have been unable to find work. The two of them convince Alfio's wealthy wife that she could make a bundle by opening up a "fat farm," or weight-loss clinic, and that they should run it. She agrees to the scheme, and they set up their site and get their first customers through television advertising. Unfortunately for the opera singer, the boxer, and other clients, neither of their hosts has any idea about how to run such a clinic, and one laughable disaster follows another. The crafty doctors scheme to undo their many mistakes and somehow miraculously manage to avoid killing anyone or getting shut down by a lawsuit. After their harrowing experiences with their first customers, however, the two decide to convert their building into a restaurant, aptly named "The Two Gluttons." ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide