Renato Pozzetto Movies

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

Before Penny Marshall brought Big to the big screen, an Italian director, Franco Amurri, released this body-changing movie. In his story, Marco (Ioska Versari) is a bedwetter whose mother scolds him one time too often, and his classmates tease him one time too often. The finishing touch is that his father neglects to bring him a Lego set for his birthday. He promptly puts all his heart into wishing he were big and not subject to these indignities. The result is that he bursts through his clothes in the guise of a middle-aged man (Renato Pozzetto) and seeks refuge in the house of his former schoolteacher. Mentally, he is still eight years old, and it's a puzzle what to do with him until someone discovers that he has an uncanny rapport with children. Then he becomes a full-time babysitter -- at least, until he is suspected of abducting the by-now long-missing child Marco. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this routine, provincial Italian comedy, sex and jealousy take center stage. Lorenzo (Renato Pozzetto) is the cubby mayor of a small town who is both blessed and plagued by a sexy wife (Gloria Guida). Although his wife is faithful, he is not sure of that and invents ways to prevent any man from misbehaving with her. Meanwhile, Arrigo is the town's notorious playboy, and everyone gets suspicious when he starts paying frequent visits to the mayor's house. The question no one considers is: which half of the married couple is Arrigo pursuing? ~ Eleanor Mannikka, 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

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

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 episodic comedy, the rich are seen to be different from the rest of us: more lustful and less scrupulous, for starters. In one episode, a parish priest fresh from a pilgrimage to Lourdes is drawn into a situation (approved of by the Pope himself) where he must try to discourage the notions developed by an Italian princess, who dreamed of the priest's face and now entertains the idea of marrying him rather than the man society has destined her for. In another episode, the ever-hapless Paolo Villaggio plays an insurance agent who is drawn just a bit too deeply into one of his client's marital schemes. ~ Clarke Fountain, 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

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

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