Avanti!

Infobox Film
name = Avanti!


image_size = 240px
caption = film poster by Sandy Kossin
director = Billy Wilder
producer = Billy Wilder
writer = I.A.L. Diamond
Samuel A. Taylor (play)
Billy Wilder
narrator =
starring = Jack Lemmon
Juliet Mills
music = Carlo Rustichelli
cinematography = Luigi Kuveiller
editing = Ralph E. Winters
distributor = United Artists
released =
runtime = 144 minutes [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9905E6DB1E3DEF34BC4052DFB4678389669EDE "Avanti!", Another Billy Wilder Farce, Stars Jack Lemmon] , a December 1972 review from "The New York Times"]
country = USA
language = English
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 68240

"Avanti!" is a 1972 comedy directed by Billy Wilder, starring Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill, Edward Andrews and Gianfranco Barra. It was adapted by I.A.L. Diamond from a 1968 play by Samuel Taylor.

Plot summary

Wendell Armbruster, Jr. (Lemmon) goes to Italy to pick up his father's body after an automobile accident. He soon finds that his self-righteous father, who for over ten years had been spending four weeks in Ischia for the mud baths, had been also having an affair during those years with a British woman who also died in the accident. The conservative Wendell meets and falls in love with the more open-minded Pamela (Mills), the daughter of the woman, also in town because of the accident.

Pre-production

The film's screenplay was based on a "short-lived, 1968 Broadway farce" set in Rome and written by Samuel Taylor. [ [http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=3119 Avanti!] from the Internet Broadway Database]

Production

Although the story is set in Ischia (a small island in the Gulf of Naples) the movie was mainly made in Sorrento, especially at the Grand Hotel Excelsior. The hydrofoil arrival was at Ischia Harbor. The Church (body viewing) was at the west end of Ischia. The closing helicopter scene was on Capri, near the lighthouse.

Reception

"The New York Times" called it "intermittently funny, charming, cute and, unfortunately, over-long" and praising Clive Revill's performance "as the suave, knowledgeable, carefree hotel manager, who's as helpful with cadavers as he is with lovers, bureaucrats, blackmailers and body snatchers." The review in "Time" magazine also compliments Revill's "deft performance" and notes that "the topical dialogue by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond—Kissinger jokes, Billy Graham jokes, etc.—gives this passingly pleasant movie the sound of a Bob Hope TV special." [ [http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,906738,00.html Quick Cuts] , a December 1972 review in "Time"] Roger Ebert called it a "pleasant, civilized comedy" that's "too long by maybe half an hour" that "suffers from the problem that the audience has everything figured out several minutes before" Lemmon's character does. [ [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720101/REVIEWS/201010303/1023 Avanti!] , a January 1972 review by Roger Ebert]

ee also

*"Same Time, Next Year", a film that focuses on an annual weekend-only adulterous relationship

References

External links

*imdb title|id=0068240|title=Avanti!