Two in one boot

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Movie
German title Two in one boot
Original title Il federale
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1961
length 102 minutes
Rod
Director Luciano Salce
script Franco Castellano
Pipolo
Luciano Salce
music Ennio Morricone
camera Erico Menczer
cut Roberto Cinquini
occupation

Two in One Boot ( Il federale ) is an Italian war comedy filmed in 1961. This Commedia all'italiana is also known under the alternative title The Heroes make overtime . It was very popular with the public in Italy and generated revenues of 310 million lire. This placed it in seventh place among domestic production in the year of its publication.

action

In 1944 large parts of Italy, including Rome, were still ruled by the Wehrmacht. Professor Bonafè, a shrewd Christian humanist, is slated to be a member of the future democratic government, but is still under the fascists' sphere of influence. Primo is a staunch fascist, but because of his narrow-mindedness, he remained a lower class. When he leads an action to arrest Bonafé, he lets himself be duped by the professor, who escapes to Abruzzo. He was given the task of returning the man he wanted to Rome; if successful, he will be promoted to provincial secretary ( federale ). He can easily find Bonafè at his Abruzzo residence. The unequal travel companions make their long journey to Rome.

Your adventurous journey takes you through contested territory. They are captured by the Wehrmacht and flee together, are shot at by partisans and bombed by American planes. The young thief Lisa repeatedly crosses her path. Primo owes it to you that he has to continue his way in underwear. Difficulties weld them together. The longer the more Primo is impressed by the education and culture of the professor, but holds firmly to his memorized fascist ideals. You stop at Primo's former instructor who, according to his family, died in Albania. In fact, he is hiding in the attic and waiting for the war to end. But Primo does not notice the upcoming change of time. Shortly before Rome, Primo and Bonafè meet Lisa again, who has stolen goods in the uniform of a provincial secretary, which Primo is wearing on her cart. He proudly marches into Rome, where American soldiers and left-wing partisans are now in charge of the streets. The vengeful partisans beat him up and want to shoot him, from which Bonafè saves him. He leaves him civilian clothes with the words: "You are free now, even if you don't want to be!"

Contemporary reviews

The Catholic film service stated in 1963: “At a time when the Church and Pope accuse the Church and Pope of failing to face totalitarianism, a film whose producers can presumably not be said to have an exaggerated love for the Church is of particular importance. albeit turbulent in Italy, shows that church institutions and monasteries were, of course, refuge for those politically persecuted. ” The critics praised the two main actors. The film not only offers a lot to laugh about, it also brings "cleverly packaged serious content for the man" . Regarding this content, the review said, "(...) even if, fortunately, by the way, there is no verbose political conversion, there is reasonable hope that Primo Arcovazzi will also make use of his previously buried intellectual faculties in the future."

"A satire on fascism, a comedy about the war and yet a passable film" introduced the left film criticism . Salce knows how to derive meaning from the action events. “The whole thing doesn't go off without a few too clumsy puns, not without style breaks and not without embarrassment. That comes because Salce is so afraid of being misunderstood himself, that comes because he is too unhesitating in his choice of means (...) But the pretty ideas predominate. " The review concluded with the remark: " The fun It doesn't just stop at Treblinka and Auschwitz ; Salce did not succeed in the grotesque either, because the comedy outweighs too much in his mixture of horror and comedy, but his attempt to destroy the matter with humor is worthy of all honor. " The Italian film critic Goffredo Fofi said: " The film would have can be interesting. He owes his huge success even in the most reactionary and fascist circles to his ambiguous morals. "

Reference books published later highlighted the qualities of the work. Vermilye (1994) ruled that Salce never returned to his performance at Two in One Boot after that. Played magnificently, the film received almost no attention in the United States due to the lack of well-known actors at the time or a sex scene that was easy to sell. Nash, Ross (1986) called the film "an intelligent comedic drama with some funny scenes and good play by Tognazzi and Wilson."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rémi Fournier Lanzoni: Comedy Italian style . Continuum, New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-8264-1822-7 , p. 255.
  2. Carlo Celli, Marga Cottino-Jones: A new guide to Italian cinema . Palgrave, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-403-97560-7 , p. 175.
  3. film-dienst , No. 49/1963, drawn by "Mg."
  4. Uwe Nettelbeck: The heroes work overtime . In: film review . No. 3/1965, p. 144.
  5. ^ Goffredo Fofi: Laughter in Italian . In: Filmkritik , No. 49/1963, p. 398.
  6. Jerry Vermilye: Great Italian films . Carol Publishing Group, New York 1994. ISBN 0-8065-1480-9 , pp. 131-132.
  7. Jay Robert Nash, Stanley Ralph Ross: The motion picture guide . Volume E-G. Cinebooks, Inc., Chicago 1986, ISBN 0-933997-03-5 , p. 819.