FUN IS BEAUTIFUL

Cardo Verdone

CinemaItaliaUK ends its year with something of a treat, as it screens Carlo Verdone's debut feature, Un sacco bello/Fun Is Beautiful (1980) at the Regent Street Cinema on 7 December. Co-produced by Sergio Leone and scored by Ennio Morricone, this episodic comedy earned Verdone (who has, of course, gone on to be one of Italy's finest film-makers) a special David di Donatello Award and the Nastro d'Argento for Best New Actor.

It's Ferragosto and Enzo (Carlo Verdone) adores himself in the mirror as he selects a medallion to wear with his open-chested black shirt. He has planned a trip to Krakow to seduce Polish girls with nylons. But travelling companion Sergio (Renato Scarpa) is having second thoughts and takes it as a sign when Enzo's souped up sports car breaks down in the Roman traffic, where the hippyish Ruggero (Verdone) is doling out leaftlets about a commune in Città della Pieve to motorists stuck at the traffic lights.

One of the drivers turns out to be Ruggero's father, Mario (Mario Brega), who insists on taking him for a coffee with his companion, Fiorenza (Isabella De Bernardi). They nearly run over Leo (Verdone) on a zebra crossing and he is wondering what to do with his spilt groceries, when he's asked for directions to a youth hostel by a Spanish tourist, Marisol (Veronica Miriel). A socially awkward chatterer, Leo offers her a chance to shower and take a nap when there prove to be no vacancies. But he can't make her understand that he has to catch a bus to spend the holiday with his domineering mother. With the landlady snooping to catch him with a visitor and Marisol distressed after the break up of her romance, Leo raises his eyes to the heavens in the hope of some divine intervention.

Meanwhile, Enzo boasts about picking up a young girl at a gig, while Sergio implores him to stop the car because he is feeling nauseous. He rolls around on the road, leaving Enzo to despair about getting to Poland on time. Back in Rome, Ruggero arrives at the family home to be confronted with Don Alfio (Verdone), the parish priest who wants to talk to him about his alternative lifestyle. Mario becomes apoplectic as Ruggero describes how he had a Damascene moment in Florence and threw all of his clothes into the Arno. He then met a man who who watched over him while he slept in the woods and pointed him in the direction of the commune where he met Fiorenza. Furious with the priest for indulging Ruggero's drippy ideas and with Fiorenza for calling him a Fascist when he is a Communist, Mario phones the Professor (Verdone) and asks him to come over and talk some sense into his son.

Leo takes Marisol to the city zoo and is appalled by the price of peanuts to feed the monkeys. Struggling to communicate, the pair wander round the empty walkways and lament that it's too hot for the animals to come out. Marisol inquires about Leo's job as an electrical engineer and asks if he is ever overcome by waves of sadness. Suddenly, she disappears (with a splash) and Leo makes all the animals bellow by running round calling her name at the top of his voice. He finds her combing her hair by a tree and they lie on the grass to let the world go by - with Leo even managing to get the animals to shut up with an exasperated appeal.

Enzo takes Sergio to the nearest hospital, where he entertains some of the orderlies and patients with tale of his gallivanting. It's decided that Sergio needs an emergency operation and Enzo is appalled to discover that he has a wife tucked away and is terrified about what she will say if she finds out he was planning to go to Krakow. Back at the Brega residence, Mario is beginning to wish he'd not invited the Professor, as he has turned up in his bathrobe and seems intent on reminiscing about raising his own son and fulminating about the amount of pornography on television.

Leo cooks pasta for Marisol, who persuades him to open his mother's special bottle of wine. They start to eat on the balcony, but she wants music and they wander into his bedroom, where Marisol strums Leo's guitar before stretching out on the bed. She beckons him to sit beside her and he is closing in for a kiss when the doorbell rings. He fears it's the landlady, but it's Marisol's artist boyfriend, Antioco (Fausto Di Bella) and Leo is forced to watch as they slap each other's faces in making up. Marisol sends him to fetch some grapefruit juice for Antioco to drink and Leo realises that his chance has gone.

While Enzo goes through the handful of names in his phone book to find someone to join him in Krakow, Mario invites nephew Anselmo (Verdone) to talk to Ruggero, as he is no closer to making him see what he considers to be sense. However, he taps numbers into a calculator while trying to explain how much his life has improved since he got married and Ruggero can barely keep his eyes open, as he witters on. Erupting with frustration, Mario curses all three of his guests for being no use whatsoever.

Across the city, Leo returns with the grapefruit juice to find the apartment empty. He fields an angry call from his mother and promises to join her the next day. He slumps on his bed, as does Enzo, who suddenly leaps up on remembering the name of a vague acquaintance and he looks up his number in the directory. As Mario drops Ruggero and Fiorenza back at the bridge - where their friend Cristiano (Sandro Ghiani) has spent the day minding their bikes - a bomb goes off and all three men shrug it off as an occupational hazard of living in Rome.

The following morning, Enzo hooks up with his scrawny pal and seems pleased that he is sufficiently docile to take orders. As they zoom off to Poland, Leo manages to avoid a collision with a scooter on the crossing and teeters towards the bus stop so he can spend the day with his mother. Life goes on.

Anyone who used to watch Stanley Baxter's Christmas specials and marvel at the chameleonic talent, while wishing that the writing had been funnier will experience a similar feeling when viewing this satirical showcase. Having made his name on stage and television as a man of many faces, Carlo Verdone belonged more to the Baxter and Dick Emery school of character creation than the more nuanced coterie that included Alec Guinness, Alberto Sordi, and Peter Sellers. Thus, while there's much to amuse in the keenly observed mannerisms of the strutting Enzo, the flower-powered Ruggero, and the cosseted Leo, Don Alfio, the Professor, and Anselmo come closer to caricature and - despite the technical ingenuity of getting all four portrayals in as single process shot - it's hard to avoid thinking that Verdone spread himself a little thin during Ruggero's prolonged pep talk, especially when everyone is so roundly upstaged by Mario Brega's splendidly blustering father.

Forty-five years after the film's release, the social humour no longer has the contemporaneity that so impressed the critics in 1980. But it has acquired a time capsule feel that makes it historically valuable for its insights into the shifting attitudes that were dividing a country emerging from the Years of Lead. Verdone and co-writers Leonardo Benvenuti and Piero De Bernardi particularly linger on the power of the Catholic Church, the legacy of clashing political ideologies, respect for parental authority, and the changing role of women. But the wit often feels subordinate to the characterisation.

One thing that hasn't aged, however, is the Ennio Morricone soundtrack, which feels in places as though sitcom theme tunes had been woven together to comment on the characters and their circumstances. It says much for Verdone that he was prepared to take on six roles in his directorial debut, but it would be interesting to know what role the uncredited Sergio Leone played in proceedings, especially as he continued to collaborate with his prodigy on Bianco, rosso e Verdone (1981), in which he also played three characters), and on his teamings with Alberto Sordi on In viaggio con papà (1982) and Troppo forte (1986).