has any American seen this film?

Alas, Mangeggia2, I can't fulfill your dream to hear at last the opinion of an American on this Monicelli masterpiece of "commedia all'italiana". Well, my grandfather was an American - a french-speaking American, ha! ha! - but he moved a couple of parallels up north when he was still young. And never mind that I eat a lot of hot-dogs, intend to watch the Superbowl even though the Pats have been eliminated, use the word "offensive" every three sentences and the word "f..k" every three words (at least when I speak English), sue people for "psychological damages" whenever I can and call everyone by their first name thus creating a false and deceiving impression of easy friendship, I am not an American, but only this second-rate ersatz of an American known as a Canadian.

That said, Amici miei is eternal. And I always have been angry that the two sequels (the first by Monicelli and the other by the underrated Nanni Loy) were never released in North America, so I don't know what's in it.

Of course, I couldn't know, when I first watched this movie as a teenager in its excellent French version (with Noiret's and Blier's original voices, of course), that "commedia all'italiana" was about to collapse - a collapse I never truly understood. What happened? As a tourist I don't have a clue. Yet I began to suspect something was afoul when I saw Primo amore (1978), L'Ingorgo (1979) and La Terrazza (1980) : the first, if excellent, was also terribly "crepuscular", the second apocalyptic, the third funeral. So, I fell in love very young with a comedy genre that was in fact about to disappear.

And old love dies hard - so they say. Amici miei is really one of the best comedies I have ever seen, it carries at the same time hilarity and despair with incredible assurance, the jokes are excellent, the tragic punches as well (Noiret's wife : "Can you assure me he is not performing one more of his practical jokes?"), the perfect pace, the curious atmosphere of farce with an after-taste of melancholy, the music, the perfect dialogues by Benvenuti/De Bernardi. And the ending of course, which I can't describe because it would be a spoiler, is simply unforgettable. Suspended between laugh and tears...

And by the way, it is also very good news to learn that Monicelli never stopped : even though its chances to be released here are at best extremely thin, I happen to know that he has just completed a new comedy, Le Rose del Deserto, at 91 years old. Hey, this guy is unbreakable !

I saw this film a long, long time ago and never forget it. I am almost 79 now and would love to see it again. So every so often I check in to "IMDB" to see if it has been released to DVD. No such luck and I guess it will never be released in time for me to see it. I laughed and laughed and laughed. P.S. I also check to see if "Love Among the Ruins" with Olivier and Hepburn has been released. Again no such luck.

Mannaggia Maneggia,
Se vuoi sentire l'opinione deglio americani, ti dovresti applicare un po' sull'inglese.
Ma che, hai usato un traduttore automatico?

I am American and it was a pleasure to see this. I enjoyed Atto II even more. I have yet to see Atto III, but I hope to when I return to Italy at year's end.

My partner is American, I intruduced him to this film and to the Atto II, and he loved both. I think at the beginning he found a bit weird to have a film that is so bitter and so hilarious at the same time, but he really enjoyed it anyway and found the acting amazing. His favourite character is the surgeon, played by Adolfo Celi.