Mario Amendola Movies
- 1987
Gildo (Paolo Villaggio) is a moralistic magistrate who shuts down red light districts in this sex comedy. His enemies conspire to photograph him in a compromising position with sex goddess Lola (Serena Grandi). Laura Antonelli plays a wealthy woman who believes her husband has drowned. A priest is forced to put his mouth on a topless nun as the battle of morality verses misbehavior unfolds. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Paolo Villaggio, Serena Grandi, (more)
- 1987
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
- Starring:
- Lino Banfi, Laura Antonelli, (more)
- 1986
A 14-year-old boy working in a secondhand store after school finds a magic lamp in this comical fantasy adventure. The genie (Bud Spencer) grants Alan his wishes when he asks for a Rolls Royce, vanquishes the local bullies, and becomes a star basketball player. The genie helps get rid of local mobster Siracusa, who is putting the squeeze on local merchants as well as on Alan's mom (Janet Agren). ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Spencer, Luca Venantini, (more)
- 1984
Hoping to cash in on the lucre generated by the American hit Flashdance, which was released about 11 months earlier, director Vittorio de Sisti put together Dance Music, but its hurried production is evident in the script and the acting. The story centers on a group of young performers living in a combination of large apartment and dance studio, where they practice with hopes of making it to New York for a special audition. In the meantime, they do menial labor at restaurants and car washes in order to support themselves. Various artful filming techniques enhance the dance numbers, some shot in aesthetically stunning locations -- though this is not enough to bury the film's flaws. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- 1984
This slapstick, bawdy farce features Tomas Milian once again as Inspector Giraldi and Bombolo as the petty thief with two left feet who helps the inspector solve a dastardly crime. Too fully schtick to cater to a tightly-woven plot, the gist of the story is that the unlikely duo have to pose as transvestites to get into the Blue Gay club where a male female dancer was murdered. When the good inspector's post-partum wife discovers him undercover with people of indeterminate gender, he tries for the rest of the story to get back into her good graces. Meanwhile, the daring duo have to go to Berlin where a film director (!) has been identified as the killer -- a member of the KGB after atomic secrets (the murdered transvestite's father is an atomic scientist). The gay world is sent up as far as the ozone layer, and the German spies are heroically one-dimensional in this take-off on the European demi-monde. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tomas Milian, Bombolo, (more)
- 1983
This undistinguished comedy in two acts features Lino Banfi as Altomare, the owner of an appliance store, who is obsessed with superstition, spells, and amulets to fight the "evil eye" that bedevils him, and Gaspare (Johnny Dorelli) a charlatan magician who through serendipity, encounters a real witch and is the happy recipient of her magic powers. Gaspare can retain those powers only on the condition that he bring her a pistachio ice cream when she asks for it. But even magic cannot do much for Altomare or Gaspare as long as they do not pay attention to the very practical, mundane matters in their lives. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lino Banfi, Milena Vukotic, (more)
- 1981
Banana Joe (Bud Spencer) lives in paradisiacal bliss in a tropical village that is untainted by hard-nosed corporate and bureaucratic types, or by corruption, drugs, gangs, and other ills of modern society. When Banana Joe takes his banana boat to the trading post, he is informed he needs a permit in order to operate the boat. Quite willing to comply with this seemingly simple formality, he treks off to the big city to find this important piece of paper. On his way to obtaining the permit, he runs into television for the first time, crooks as well, and a pretty nifty nightclub singer who greatly opens up his limited knowledge of feminine charms. After more than one contretemps, in which he proves his strength and moral fiber, Banana Joe gets the permit and heads back to the village -- only to find that a tacky gambling casino has been set up in his absence. It looks like he has his work cut out for him again, as his shackles rise at this insult to his idyllic home and he gears up for battle. A toe-tapping tropical rhythm lightens the action in the film, aimed for the younger set rather than their parents. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bud Spencer, Marina Langner, (more)
- 1981
As an ex-husband (Johnny Dorelli), his wife (Laura Antonelli), and their two children take a vacation on the ex's new yacht, the scene is set for disaster when it becomes clear that the ex-husband knows absolutely nothing about yachting. The crew quickly find out that the Mediterranean has its own challenges, and the wife discovers her particular nemesis in a thoroughly unlikeable playboy (Christian De Sica) who has his sights set a little too firmly on her alone. The interaction between the triad of wife, ex-husband, and playboy reaches a final resolution as the yacht moves closer to its own special fate. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Antonelli, Johnny Dorelli, (more)
- 1980
In this Italian police drama, a hippie cop goes to Milan to look into a murder. He is called because he grew up in the same neighborhood as the prime suspect. The suspect's alibi was that he was hiding beneath a bed when the murder occurred. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tomas Milian, Olimpia di Nardo, (more)
- 1978
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
- Starring:
- Renato Pozzetto, Silvano Tranquilli, (more)
- 1977
Three episodes of slapstick sexual comedy comprise this film. In the first, a young priest is deserted by his flock until an American protestant minister comes to town with his lovely wife. When the parishioners are convinced that their priest has proved his manhood with the minister's wife, church attendance resumes. In the second episode, a travelling salesman is challenged by the nearly nude state of a lovely female hitchhiker. In the third episode, a woman trying to collect information on her philandering husband, in order to divorce him, is seated on an airplane next to a man who is deathly afraid of flying. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Renato Pozzetto, Dalila di Lazzaro, (more)
- 1977
This slapstick Italian sex comedy actually looks far more expensive than it really is, as it used the sets left over from the 1980 spectacular Caligula. It can't quite make up its mind, though, if it's a comedy (the emperor Claudius is a doddering, stuttering, impotent old fool), a sex film (with much nudity and several orgy scenes), or a slasher/gore picture (in a scene where soldiers invade an orgy and starting dismembering and decapitating everyone in sight -- which, incredibly, is treated as a slapstick scene!), and winds up being not much of anything. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Vittorio Caprioli, Gian Carlo Prete, (more)
- 1975
The Emperor of Japan has sent the U.S. President a very special Asian horse. Three incredible rogues hear of this horse and decide to kidnap it for a $500,000 ransom. One of them, the "white" is Giuliano Gemma, a grandiose kleptomaniac. Tomás Milian is the "yellow," a Japanese samurai, and the last ("black") is Eli Wallach, a goofy and gullible sheriff who has been victimized by "white" before, and will be again. The alliance between the three is a shaky thing, but "black" will have stumbled into clover. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Giuliano Gemma, Tomas Milian, (more)
- 1975
- R
In this African adventure, a greedy fortune hunter endeavors to get his hands on the untold riches lying buried in Central Africa. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1973
According to the history books, the female Amazon warriors of Asia Minor often chopped off their breasts, the better to accommodate their bow-and-arrow weaponry. Rest assured that the anonymous Spanish and Italian starlets in Battle of the Amazons are in full possession of their principal attributes. Lucretia Love plays the Amazon queen, who assembles her forces when the bad guys invade their land. Love is aided in battle by the neighboring male farmers, led by the athletic Lincoln Tate. The direction of Battle of the Amazons was credited to Al Bradley, but this was a pseudonym for Alfonso Brescia. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1972
- R
Jed (Tomas Milian) is an unlikely hero in this Italian western. As thoroughly unlikeable a robber as ever walked the West, he nonetheless robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Not only is he a murderous, ill-tempered sort, he is bad-mannered, too. When Sonny (Susan George) decides he should be her man and teach her how to be a proper outlaw, sparks fly. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 1968
- NR
The Longest Hunt is an Italian spaghetti western with Keenan Wynn and Brian Kelly as its prime meatballs. Wynn plays a powerful rancher whose son is an outlaw. As much as he despises his boy's activities, he doesn't want the law to catch up with the kid. So Wynn hires gunslinger Kelly to bring the boy back to the ranch before he ends up at the business end of a rope. The Longest Hunt is not to be found in Keenan Wynn's "official" resume; perhaps it was made during a lull in the shooting of Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1966
In this spaghetti western, an undercover gunslinger accidently gets caught in a feud between two families. One of them forces him into a showdown and he kills him. He then must escape from the wrathful family. He is assisted by an old man, who helps him slaughter the rest of the clan. In the end, he takes off with a daughter from the other family. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1961
A sentimental drama with religious overtones, the Italian-made Teacher and the Miracle stars Eduardo Novella as an art teacher who is devoted to his young son. The boy's sunny nature and natural talent inspires the teacher to open his own art school. But when his son is killed in an auto accident, the teacher loses his will to live. Going through the motions at his school, the teacher meets an enigmatic young urchin who restores his zest for living. Teacher discovers at the end that the boy has been sent to him by his patron saint, in order that he might fulfill his destiny of instructing aspiring young artists. Teacher and the Miracle wasn't given much of a theatrical distribution in the US in 1961, but has since become a regular feature of Christian high school weekend retreats. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
