Highly Overrated But Still Good

The first must-see film of the year.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Well,what shall I write about this movie.It's my favourite movie from my favourite film-maker,Billy Wilder,with my favourite actor,Jack Lemmon.I liked Billy Wilder's movies already as a young boy and nothing has changed since then.As usual I don't want to write much about the movie's story because others have done that already sufficiently-thanks to them. All characters in this movie-really ALL-are played excellently.Billy Wilder obviously had the talent to choose the right actors and to make them give their best. Among all these excellent performances I nevertheless want to mention the outstanding performance of Clive Revill as hotel director Carlo Carlucci.If I had to choose the best five performances in all the movies I ever watched his performance surely would be among them.I also want to mention the performance of Edward Andrews as the bull in a Chinese shop-diplomat J.J. Plodgett.This character is an obvious allusion to Henry Kissinger and it is timeless,as a recently leaked telephone call between two U.S. diplomats shows... I always wondered why the German title of this movie is "Avanti,avanti!" and not,like in the U.S. and nearly everywhere else,only "Avanti!" I think I now found out the reason. "Avanti!" means not only "forward!",but it's also the name of Italy's most important socialist newspaper of the 20ieth century...and the editor-in-chief exactly hundred years ago was nobody else but-Benito Mussolini! So the movie's title "Avanti!" turns out to be an obvious allusion to that all.But don't forget that at that time there was the cold war.So the movie was released in Italy with quite a different title (you can check it) in order to avoid advertising for a socialist newspaper...In Spain the movie also was released with a different title-at that time Franco was still living.And in Germany,where at the time the movie was released there was already living half a million Italian immigrants,the movie was given the name "Avanti,avanti!" also to avoid advertising for a socialist newspaper and to show that "Avanti!" means "forward!" and nothing else...What concerns the chambermaid's moustache-I suppose it wasn't only an unfunny joke.It makes Anna look more or less like a man and gives her affair with Bruno a homosexual undertone-an undertone the changing clothes scene in the plane obviously had.Don't forget the many political (and other) undertones in Billy Wilders movies,not only in "Avanti!" And don't forget that Billy Wilder thought about letting Wendell Armbruster Sr. have on Ischia not an affair with a woman,but-with a man...Some viewers complained about the adultery and the nudity shown in this movie.But nobody complained about the homicide also shown in this movie. Very remarkable.Isn't that exactly the bigotry Billy Wilder wanted to parody with "Avanti!"? By the way,at the time the movie was made there was a referendum in preparation in Italy which intended to abolish the divorce law passed two years ago.Billy Wilder's movie "Avanti!" obviously also had the intention to influence it,portraying Italian men as notoriously adulterous.The referendum failed two years later,by the way.

A successful businessman (Jack Lemmon) goes to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon-father's body only to discover dad died with his mistress of long standing.Whether this film is good or not depends on how you look at it. If you want a film that is not predictable, you will hate this film, because it follows all the classic formulas from scene one to the closing credits.But we do have the Wilder touch, and Jack Lemmon is always a joy to watch. He won a Golden Globe for this role. Is it his best movie? No. He probably won because of his nude scenes.Some of the characters (notably the coroner) are amusing and really make the film worthwhile, but it is not the best film from either Lemmon or Wilder and thus while I liked it would not strongly endorse it.

You can do that by simply not watching this atrocity. I said so over 10 years ago and I maintain the same line. You've got to be over 70 AND hate modern times to like this ancient concoction. I've seen Lemmon in memorable movies, but he ain't in this one. But then, any old movie has trouble keeping up with changing culture, I'll give you this. I admit, I saw Avanti, possibly when I was too young to make much sense of it. But it did cause me a few laughs. That I remember. Watching it now, I see myself sitting stony-faced, counting the minutes. What on earth was that all about!? I need to write ten lines but there's nothing to be said other than save yourself the expense, the time, the disappointment. If you have to see ancient movies, get yourself something substantial and let me know what that might be. Thank you. Go away, Avanti.

I seem to be in the minority here, but perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for "Avanti!", a Billy Wilder film starring Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, and Clive Revill. An uptight businessman, Wendell Armbruster (Lemmon) comes to Ischia to claim his vacationing father's body, only to find out that his father had a ten-year liaison with another woman. Her daughter, Pamela Piggott (Mills) comes to Italy to claim her mother's body, and knows all about the affair. At first, Wendell is infuriated about the whole thing, while Pamela finds the romance a beautiful story. Slowly, Wendell loosens up, and, in the beautiful setting of Ischia, his attitudes undergo a change.This film has wonderful performances, a witty script in parts, incredible photography, and a sweet story, but I found it overly long and talky. Wilder, for my money anyway, did not enter the post-1960 film world all that successfully with perhaps the exception of "Irma La Douce." This is really a romantic movie, and not Wilder's normal, hard-edged milieu. It almost seeing as if the film was trying too hard to be modern."Avanti!" was a Broadway flop that ran 21 performances. It's hard to see why Wilder thought this would make a good film.