Avanti! (1972) User Reviews

beautiful film in a beautiful location

[TheNorthernMonkee · 8/10 · 7 July 2004]

SPOILERS

There is a general theory in the world today that we will one day evolve into our parents. As one man might become like his father, as might a woman become like her mother. This is perhaps one aspect of the beautiful film that is "Avanti!".

In this film, Wendell Armbuster Junior (the always brilliant Jack Lemmon) has travelled to Italy to pick up the recently deceased body of his father. Running on occasion into an English woman by the name of Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), Wendell experiences the beauty of the small Isle Of Ischia as a friendship develops with the neurotic Miss Piggott.

The beauty of "Avanti" is it's simplicity. Jack Lemmon travels to Italy as one man, and leaves another. Learning the truth behind his fathers visits to Ischia, Lemmon slowly begins to emulate his father and fall for his father's lover's daughter. Taught to relax and enjoy life, Lemmon's character develops from a mad, rushing, rude businessman into a friendly romantic with a lust for life. Juliet Mills' Miss Piggott equally changes as she develops from a paranoid, unhappy, diet obsessed, nut into a happy, laid back, beautiful woman with an equal love for life as Lemmon. Together the couple work beautifully together, firstly sparring and later uniting.

This film is wonderful for many reasons. As well as the aforementioned change amongst the starring cast, Clive Revill as the hotel manager Carlo Carlucci is superb and has some of the films funniest lines. Added to the acting abilities, the brilliant direction of Billy Wilder and already looking like a piece of genius.

Ultimately though, as well as the acting and directing, the three things which really make this film stand out are the often hilarious script, the stunning, addictive soundtrack and the picturesque views. After watching "Avanti", the one thing most viewers want is to instantly be transported away from where ever they are, to the beautiful landscapes of the Italian Islands. With glorious sunshine, rocks in the water where you can relax and watch the Sun come up, and classical buildings, the impression is that the people to come out of this film the best were the tourist trade of this beautiful Isle.

Truth be told, there's hardly any criticism which can be given to this film. Starting brilliantly from the offset, there's no slow start, just like there's no awkward ending. The only negative aspect, perhaps, is that it makes us wish we were somewhere else. Even this though is not as much a negative as a frustration. "Avanti" is an amazing film which makes us smile and makes us laugh. It reminds us of the beauty of the world, and it reminds us of how great life can be. This is one for the ages.

A Place That Heals Everything

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 11 April 2009]

The arrogant and rude Vice-President of the Armbruster Industries Wendell Armbruster, Jr. (Jack Lemmon) travels to Ischia, in Italy, to bring the body of his father Wendell Armbruster, Sr., who died in a suddenly and tragic accident while driving on a road, back to Baltimore. During his trip, the British woman Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills) tries to start a conversation with him, but the impolite executive does not give a chance to her. In Ischia, the manager of Hotel Excelsior Carlo Carlucci (Clive Revill) welcomes Wendell telling that it is a place that heals everything; he helps him with the Italian bureaucracy and to get a sealed zinc casket in Amalfi to release the corpse from the morgue. When Wendell meets Pamela in the hotel, he discovers that his father and her mother had been lovers for ten years and they had met each other every year from July 15th to August 15th. Wendell offers to help Pamela, who is needy and has weight problem, and they decide to follow the routine of his father and their mother, finding why the couple had had a so long love affair.

"Avanti!" is another delightful movie of the genius Billy Wilder. This witty, ironic and dramatic romantic comedy has another partnership with Jack Lemmon in the lead role of a rude and tough executive that is surprised with the secret relief valve of his father's life in the wonderful Italy. The sweet and charming Juliet Mills is perfect in the role of the complexed and needy Pamela. And Clive Revill is fantastic in the role of an experienced hotel manager that fixes everything in the Hotel Excelsior and his performance deserved a nomination to the Oscar. The plot is supported by magnificent landscapes and one of the most beautiful soundtracks of the cinema history. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Avanti Amantes Á Italiana" ("Avanti ...Italian Lovers")

Lovely story, nice to see !

[Sasa-13 · 7/10 · 30 August 1999]

At the 70s, people took much more care of the characters than today !! It is not a comedy where you can laugh aloud. But you have a smile on your face all the time you watch this movie ! In a way, this movie makes you happy !! Especially Jack Lemmon is a great actor !!

Lemmon and Wilder take to Europe

[coverme6 · 10 August 2001]

The great team of actor Jack Lemmon and director Billy Wilder create yet another classic in their repetoire of great films. In AVANTI! (which means "forward" in Italian), Lemmon plays Armbruster, a snobby American executive who travels to Italy to reclaim the body of his father after the latter dies of an autowreck. Little did Armbruster

know that his old man had a companion with him, a British lady whose daughter Pamela (Juliet Mills) is also present to claim her body. Though antagonists at first, Armbruster and Pamela are drawn together because of their parents' mutual interest. With a rich Italian

landscape (complete with an awesome view of the Mediterrean Sea), plus a typically great performance by Lemmon and a well-played one by Mills, make this a terrific romance flick.

Funny but overlong comedy set on IItalian scenarios by the genius Billy Wilder

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 9 September 2011]

This amusing motion picture deals with a rich businessman named Wendel Ambruster , a frenzied Jack Lemmon , heads to Italy to arrange for the return of his tycoon-father's corpse , dead while on vacation , only to discover dad died with his mistress of long standing. The dyspectic businessman discovers daddy has been romancing a mistress these many years ago and he finds himself falling in love with the woman's daughter . Later on , the stuffy millionaire is seduced by Italian lifestyle and the charms of an attractive Juliet Mills .

Enjoyable , too long and fun-filled comedy which neatly combines humor , mirth , entertaining situations and amusement . Based on playwright by Samuel Taylor , being well adapted by Billy Wilder and his usual I.A.L. Diamond . Magnificent performances from Jack Lemmon as angst-ridden middle-aged man and Juliet Mills more relaxed and enticing than ever . Furthermore , a splendid secondary cast as a Clive Revill and Edward Andrews who have never been better ; plus a variety of Italian support cast who makes sympathetic interpretations . Colorful and shimmer cinematography under continental sunshine filmed on location in Amalfi Coast , Sorrento , Naples , Campany , Italy . Emotive and lively musical score full of Italian songs and Mediterranean sounds by Carlo Rustichelli . This is a fine film but inferior to Wilder's former works ; it belong his last period when realized nice though unsuccessful movies as ¨Buddy buddy¨,¨Fedora¨ , ¨Front page¨and ¨Secret life of Sherlock Holmes¨. Rating : Good , though overlength but still completely entertaining .

A comedy, a romance, a satire, a jewel!

[hondo551 · 10/10 · 20 January 2006]

Years ago I thought I was familiar with all of Billy Wilder's movies and as I thumbed through what might have been an old copy of Playboy, perhaps a Sex in the Cinema article, I came across a picture of a nude Juliet Mills and Jack Lemmon sitting on the rocks in an unknown Billy Wilder film, and was determined to one day see that film and much more of the Nanny from The Nanny and the Professor. VCRs were just coming on the market, so I had to wait a few years till Cinemax showed it in the early morning. I stayed up most of the night to satisfy my prurient interest and what I ended up with was a film I didn't want to end, a tune that played over and over again in my head for days, and one of my most favorite movies.

Yes, this movie is a comedy, sometimes a very black comedy, and sometimes a satire filled with irony. Yes, it's a romance, all about a wonderful romance that sparks up between two seemingly opposite people in the strangest of places at the strangest of times under the strangest of circumstances, the way romance quite often does. And at times there's sadness and pain to tug at your heart. It's all about discovering who you really are when you've lost your way in all life's confusion, and also about perhaps being better than your parents when you get older and more like them.

Lemmon is the consummate cad, Juliet Mills the most charming Englishwoman to grace a celluloid comedy, Clive Revill is perfect in his most Oscar-deserving role as the hotel manager Carlo Carlucci, the Italian cast members never fail to entertain, and the music is as catchy and memorable as any Bernstein or Tiomkin or Goldsmith score. The movie may be 2-1/2 hours long, but the time passes quickly as Lemmon and Mills rediscover love and youth and passion, and I always find myself wishing that I could see the two lovers returning a year later like their parents.

Billy Wilder may have given us dramatic gems like Stalag 17, Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, and Sunset Boulevard, given us comedic gems like Seven Year Itch and Some Like It Hot, and romantic gems like The Apartment and Irma La Douce, but it wasn't till the end of his career that he could take qualities from all of those and give them a magical, lyrical feel and atmosphere and come up with a jewel like Avanti!

outstanding overlooked Wilder flick

[rupie · 7/10 · 6 August 2002]

This charming and whimsical flick has been a favorite of mine for years, and I am puzzled as to why it so neglected. There are five main reasons the film works so well, not necessarily in order of importance: 1) the cinematography of the isle of Ischia 2) Billy Wilder's direction 3) Jack Lemmon 4) Wilder's and Diamond's script 5) Clive Revill as the hotel manager. Little can be added to the generally favorable comments found here. My favorite scene: Wendell Armbruster's introduction to the Trotta family ("That's a lotta Trottas!"). Well worth a see!

A bittersweet masterpiece

[zebulonguy · 10/10 · 15 May 2007]

So much has been said about the plot of Avanti it seems pointless to go over the synopsis again- but I can say although I am a lover of Horror films, Thrillers and Westerns- it is Avanti that is my favourite film of all time.Avanti is gorgeous to look at and features a beautiful music score. How I wish I could obtain a soundtrack of this delightful score. The scene when Pamela Pigott ( Juliet Mills ) tours the city on a horse drawn carriage and later running from her new found admirers is beautiful with the music so perfect.Also when Pamela and Wendell ( Jack Lemmon ) have their evening meal together , it is again a beautiful music score. Jack Lemmon as the bombastic Wendell Armbruster is as always great. Juliet Mills as Pamela Pigott looks far too gorgeous to be ridiculed by Armbruster but she shines in her finest ever role. However for me the film is stolen completely by Clive Revill as the hotel manager- what a sublime performance. Watch his every movement, his every expression, his delivery of every line.It is a captivating performance, totally exquisite. Clive Revill is an actor sorely neglected by the film world.Billy Wilder's film is so very neglected and it's a pity as this is the perfect film. Watch the beautiful, poignant sequence at the mortuary as Pamela and Wendell view the bodies of their mother and father respectively. And again watch Clive Revill alongside Lemmon and Mills- acting with only movement, expression and not a word. The lighting in this scene is so wonderful, it is dark and depressing with the exception of a shaft of sunlight penetrating the smallest of windows. Wilder manages to wring excellent portrayals out of even the most minor of characters. Watch Avanti and savour the acting, the music and the scenery.

"You remember Mussolini?"

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 2 July 2008]

After decades of dishing out enough cynicism to make a clergyman lose all faith in humanity, I'm almost glad that, by 1972, director Billy Wilder and co-screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond had gotten most of it out of their system. Wilder's fifth film with Jack Lemmon, 'Avanti! (1972),' can only be described as a pleasant comedy – so pleasant, in fact, that our lead character commits adultery seemingly out of politeness. There are, of course, elements of satire concerning foreign policy and the miles of red-tape surrounding international commerce, but the overwhelming emotional tone is one of bittersweet fulfillment. This is a great director approaching the twilight of his life and career, and finally recognising that there is, after all, much goodness in this world, even if one must travel to Italy in order to experience it. Nevertheless, the three major creative talents (Wilder, Diamond and Lemmon) would subsequently return to cynical quickfire screwball with 'The Front Page (1974),' an adaptation of the same play that spawned Howard Hawks' 'His Girl Friday (1940).'

Jack Lemmon plays Wendell Armbruster, Jr, a wealthy American businessman who boards the first plane to Italy following the news of his father's death. Wendell Armbruster, Sr was killed in an automobile accident while on his annual pilgrimage to the Grand Hotel Excelsior, where he goes, he says, to rejuvenate in their famous Italian mud baths. It doesn't take long, however, for Wendell to discover that his much-respected father had not died alone, and that his secret English mistress of ten years had also perished when their vehicle ploughed off a winding road and into a vineyard. Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), the mistress' open-minded daughter, has also arrived in the country to claim her mother's body, and Wendell treats her poorly, his steadfast morals refusing to acknowledge their parents' liaison for the great love that it was. As the two corpses become embroiled in endless lengths of red tape – including the need to acquire two zinc-lined coffins, and no shortage of obscure contracts to be signed – Wendell and Pamela begin to understand their close connection, and form a touching relationship of their own.

Though the two leads both deliver sterling comedic performances, Clive Revill is undoubtedly the film's highlight as Carlo Carlucci, the world's most accommodating hotel manager. Blessed with political connections of all kinds, and an inability to sleep until the hotel's off-season, Carlo darts endlessly across town to tie up all the loose ends, apparently expecting nothing in return – he's probably Wilder's all-time nicest comedic creation. The narrative style is similar to that of Arthur Hiller's 'The Out of Towners (1970),' in that the story is comprised of many consistently-mounting setbacks, though the overall effect is far less frustrating for the audience and spares sufficient time to allow some important character development. There is also a rather unnecessary subplot involving a deported American immigrant and his disturbingly-masculine girlfriend, and the film, however nice its intentions, does run about half an hour overtime. Nevertheless, 'Avanti!' is a mature romantic comedy with memorable performances and a very enjoyable story; I wouldn't be surprised if it warms to me greatly with repeat viewings.

Come In! -- And Enjoy an Enchanting Romantic Comedy!

[mdm-11 · 10/10 · 4 October 2004]

Billy Wilder & Jack Lemmon didn't go straight for the belly laughs in this departure from their usual all-out-crazy comedies. Fans of the masters will be pleasantly surprised by this delightful romantic comedy, which captivates the viewer from the very start. Mezmerizing backdrop music plays as though secretly staged by Cupid standing by to assure that lovebirds will find one another. Lemmon plays the son of a mega-wealthy American business man who had to drop everything to fly to Italy in order to claim the father's remains after a car accident. En route to his late father's "final stop", Lemmon runs in to a persistent young woman, who turns out to be the daughter of the woman with whom the father had had a lengthy affair, and who was found lovingly slung around his neck as they both died in said accident.

The situation seems rather awkward at first, but eventually Lemmon and the young woman begin following into the exact same steps their departed parents had done years earlier. The picture is completed by a brilliant supporting cast of hotel personnel and colorful locals. The performance of the multi-talented and ever-present-minded hotel manager was Oscar worthy.

Listening to the testimony of all people asked, Lemmon learns that his late father and his "friend" were viewed as Royalty, nothing less than figures from a fairy tale. The concluding scenes are the final touches to a most enchanting romantic comedy, one that has few rivals in its category. Billy Wilder has done it again. What he missed in big laughs, he made up in many magic moments and gentle pressures to your tear glands. One of the very best out there. Belissima!

Amiable Wilder comedy

[rosscinema · 6/10 · 20 October 2003]

This is one of Billy Wilder's lesser known films and when it opened in the early 1970's it was dismissed by most critics. One of the reasons is it's incredible length. Story is about an American businessman named Wendell Armbruster (Jack Lemmon) who travels to Italy to claim the body of his father who has died in a car crash. He wants the body transported back to the states immediately so that he can have a big funeral on closed circuit television for his company. When he arrives he meets Carlucci (Clive Revill) who is the manager of the hotel that his father stays at and he is informed that his father did not die alone in the car and he meets Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills). Pamela's mother also died in the car and Wendell discovers that his father has been having an affair for the last ten years. Both Wendell and Pamela have a difficult time getting the bodies ready to be shipped because special coffins have to be ordered and transportation forms have to be signed by judges that are nowhere to be found. Pamela complains about her weight and she also suggests that both bodies stay in Italy to be buried but Wendell objects. Then both bodies are stolen and held for ransom but back at the hotel a bellhop named Bruno (Gianfranco Barra) has photo's and is blackmailing Wendell because he wants a visa to go back to America. This film was made after Billy Wilder's best years but he was still a very good director and would go on to direct some very good films. This is not one of his best although it's not a bad film. The big thing that hurts the film is it's two and a half hour length! Did this really have to be 2 1/2 hours long? I can't imagine sitting in a theater watching a fairly good romantic/comedy for that long and I've sat through a lot of long films. There are some scenes that just go on too long and at certain points the film would start to meander. But I am giving this a mild recommendation and one reason would be that this definitely plays better when your at home watching it on television. Another plus for this film is the wonderful performance of Revill. His character is vital to the story and he actually helps hold the film together. We all should be so lucky to have a gentleman like this watching our backs! And I thought Lemmon had good chemistry with Mills. She never got enough opportunities in her career to show what a good actress she is. And I have one thing to say about the nudity that was asked of her in this film. I don't care if it's not proper to say this but her nudity was one of the highlights of the film. As a man who grew up in the 60's and 70's and watched "Nanny and the Professor" this was really something to behold. I thought she looked beautiful and I think it was in the film to show the viewers that her character shouldn't complain too much about her weight. Like in all of Wilder's films the dialogue is sharp and crisp, "That's a lot of Trotta's"! Far from being one of Wilder's better films but the performances by Lemmon, Mills and Revill make up for the overlong story.

Lovely, autumnal Wilder masterpiece, with afterbite.(possible spoilers)

[the red duchess · 9/10 · 26 February 2001]

'Avanti', Billy Wilder's last notable film, is defined by absence. Most obviously so in the case of the central couple, playing out their relationship in the shadow of the dead parents they have come to bury, an absence comically mirrored when their corpses are snatched by the disgruntled peasants on whose farm their car crashed.

It is also the insistent absence of the home Armbruster has temporarily left behind, intruding not only in the phone calls regularly interrupting his burgeoning relationship with Pamela, but in his personality, his worries as an executive and the soul-destroying banality of his marriage resulting in the raging black hole that arrives in Italy, condescending and insulting everything in sight.

The irony of this film is that these two absences cancel each other out, and give Armbruster a definite gain, the return of his humanity. Again, this is comically mirrored in Pamela's desire to lose weight, her gaining pounds in direct proportion to her happiness.

Once again, Wilder is concerned with double lives, that gaping chasm between duty and desire. Cynical as ever, he finds that the only way to reconcile the two, to stay true to yourself, is to deceive; curative adultery. The romance in this romantic comedy is sublime if you are willing to give into it - and I do, every time - but Wilder's vision hasn't softened.

Mr Ambruster Sr.'s month-long trips for extra-marital succour did not make him a better, or more egalitarian human being. The double life for him was what it has always been for successful men where society is based on a rigid code of morality, or bourgeois respectability. He might have been a dear old lover in Italy, but in America he remained a consummate hypocrite, upholding phoney religious ideals, hobnobbing with high-ranking government officials engaged in bombing Asian civilians, running his huge multi-national with Nixonian corruption, treating his Third-World employees like dirt.

The double life celebrated at the end on an ironical wave of sentiment is an ingeniously American, two-faced compartmentalising of duty and desire - instead of repressing one and letting it get out of violent hand, it is pushed somewhere else, indulged in its proper place, and the status quo, so painstakingly defended by hotel director Carlucci, remains static.

This is not to suggest that Armbruster will follow this route; maybe he will become a genuinely more decent person; but the film has been paralleling his move towards to his father to the point where he ritually imitates him (like a ghost?). His first act on reaching America will be a massive act of deceit, burying a Mafia lackey in front of Kissinger, but this subversive act will be known only to three people. There will be no apple carts turned. So the familiar Wilder transformation scene on the plane - where Armbruster changes suits with Dr Fleischmann - and the Wilderean prevalance of mirrors suggest not that Armbruster will transform his personality, but that he will become adept at living two lives, literally wearing two suits.

'Avanti' has always been my favourite Wilder film (although it's now been surpassed by 'Private life of Sherlock Holmes'), but I can understand why people might want to resist it - it is based on a play, and wallows in, rather than trying to transcend, its theatricality, although there is a complex pattern of visual echoes (e.g. opening windows to let in the sun at hotel and morgue). Its mixture of farce, black comedy and romance will not be to every taste, and some may feel the sentimental manipulation too much, although I hope I've showed how Wilder manipulates this. Others might find the usual Wilder trading in stereotypes worrying.

In its defence, I can only offer the non-cinematic virtues of strong characterisation; brilliant acting (Clive Revill as Carlucci is particularly cherishable); a tonal balance rare in Wilder; cleverly worked out situations; and bellyachingly funny dialogue. The less 'relevant' Wilder became, the more he relaxed his need to breathlessly wisecrack, and these late works seem to me much more satisfactory, and have dated much better. Look at the scene where Armbruster and Pamela identify their parents' bodies like a wedding ceremony, a brilliant encapsulation of Wilder's complex art.

Eminently watchable

[blaberma · 7/10 · 19 July 2016]

Not Billy Wilders best but at times funny and an absolutely beautiful movie to look at.Hard to choose which is more beautiful,the Italian Riviera or Juliet Mills in the altogether.This was the Nanny and the Professor that everyone of us who was in love with Juliet Mills wanted to see.The hardest part of the movie to believe is that it takes Jack Lemmon so long to fall in love with her.If you see this movie is on one of your cable channels it is a definite must see for the laughs,the scenery and the loveliness of Italy and Juliet Mills Alpine curves and exquisite English beauty.Edward Andrews and Clive Revill both have a field day with their character roles and were never better.

What a disappointment!

[redskinrex · 3/10 · 10 January 2020]

At least the views of Italy are wonderful. The premise had SO much promise, but the movie script was SO disappointing. I could've written more entertaining and humorous dialogue and I've never written a screenplay. It was dull, depressing, dragging and horribly hackneyed. It was so sexist that my wife left about 1/3 of the way through. I also found it offensive that they kept referring to Juliet Mills as FAT, when she was NOTHING of the kind. My goodness what a waste of a comic genius talent in Jack Lemon.

A lot of sophisticated fun.

[JimWaz · 11 January 2000]

This movie is somewhat long, especially if you watch it on TV with commercials, but it stays fresh and you never want it to be over. Jack Lemon at first is such a prig you wonder that Juliet Mills will ever have anything to do with him, but of course all ends well, with Lemon providing the comic focus. My favorite line in the movie occurs when the valet Bruno has been attempting to blackmail Lemon with nude pictures of his father. Lemon, not knowing Bruno has just been killed by his mistress complains to the manager, and ends by saying Bruno should be shot. The manager assures him that it has already been taken care of. What Service!

Too overcooked and definitely not 'al dente'...

[ElMaruecan82 · 6/10 · 7 August 2021]

Until yesterday "Avanti!" was that film that I could never finish. I tried in 2009 and then 2014... I think I can pinpoint the exact moment where my memory starts fading: right after Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills impersonate the little mermaid on that rock in the Mediterranean sea, where she's happily harboring her nipples on the Bay of Naples.

I suspect these parts come after ninety minutes, a reasonable runtime for a comedy but that scene, as Churchill would say, isn't merely the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. I second reviewers who say the film tries too much our patience and it's one of these instances that no matter how good the material was or the cast (and it was a good cast, and a good material, albeit a bit morally compromised), less would've been better.

Lemmon plays the kind of stuck-up businessman whose names are generally followed with a number, he arrives in the seaside resort of Ischia to retrieve the body of his recently deceased father. He meets in his way an English tourist named Pamela Piggot (Mills) who's later revealed to be coming for a similar reason, only it's her mother who died in the same car accident that killed his father. Naturally, all the set-ups indicate the comical destination: the discovery that the well-respected conservative Baltimore patriarch didn't exactly come to Ischia seeking the invigorating effects of mud baths or to cure the gout.

The treatment of infidelity marks a departure in Billy Wilder's work: what was treated as a sinful crime in "Double Indemnity", a comical fling in "The Seven-Year Itch" or one of masculinity's ugliest traits in "The Apartment", becomes an enchanting autumnal romance caressed by the Italian summer breeze. So this time the joke is on Lemmon and since he starts as a straitlaced WASP devoted to his marriage and family and trying to hide the ugly truths about his father, we can only hear the little plot mechanisms tracing his arc toward the 'right' direction.

And that direction is obviously embodied (and boy, does the film insist on the body!) by Pamela who knew about the liaison and can only look at the romantic side of it, even suggesting to get rid of all the repatriation red tape and let the two lovers be buried in the city where their loved blossomed each of the last ten years, from July 15 to August 15. Now, I'm as romantic as the next guy and I didn't expect their animosity to prevail, the issue is that there's never any indication that Willie lives an unhappy marital life and Lemmon plays the 'straight' car way too aggressively to assume that the door of his heart is open.

Sure the contrast with the more free-spirited Pamela is fun to watch and the diplomatic patience of Clive Rivelli as the Hotel manager Carlo Carlucci (he really had me think he was a real Italian) creates great interactions and Lemmon's timing is impeccable, his stuttering and mimics make him the perfect target for sitcom-like gags, but sometimes he's too good for the film's own good... and doesn't transition as smoothly as one would expect.

The gags are all there and the little quips and wits about cultural differences between Italians and Americans, all impregnated by the context of the early 70s, are well-engineered by a I. A. L Diamond and Wilder who know to use stereotypes without abusing them. But there's something strange in that Lemmon going all Walter Matthau at times and being so oblivious to the things happening around that he switches intermittently from the straight guy to an angry clown. Juliet Mills is more natural, constant and seems like a good-hearted person but her feelings for Willie are left unclear: does she really like him or is she trying to emulate her own mother, pursuing her romance as a way to cope with her death?

Many reviewers point out the moral aspect of the plot, my other issue is that the film deals with people in early stages of mourning, so you'd never know how sane is the emotional balance, how sincerely enamored they are.

Maybe that's why the original material was doomed from the start and Samuel Taylor's play was cancelled after 21 days, there's something slightly disturbing in a romance blossoming over graveyards like dandelions, a cynicism that was never Wilder's trademark. Maybe he's trying to much to get in with the sexual revolution tide... and so we have to endure the sight of a naked Lemmon not once but twice, seriously, the nudity is overplayed along with the comments on Pamela's weight.

It's a foregone conclusion that the two will 'consummate' but Wilder and Diamond makes the film a little more labyrinthine than needed: after the first 'nude' scene, we get to the subplot involving Bruno, the peeping-tom valet and his wife and that was a sorry miscalculation, for one thing we don't really care about them and the maid is made so outrageously ugly with that mustache the joke is more revolting than funny. Yes, every plot element serves another but there are thirty minutes of the film that could easily be cut.

There are some great shots that bring a sort of 'dolce vita' touch, the "Permesso! Avanti" is a cute running gag waiting for Lemmon to finally "Avanti" a little... but there are too many needless complications, too many characters who, no matter how enjoyable they are (Edward Andrews is one of them) come way too late, and Lemmon's romantic epiphany too abruptly to be believable.

It's a weird romance where a man isn't supposed to have feelings and when he does, it's so contrived the mazy plot didn't even serve its purpose. There are great one-liners and Lemmon is good at playing fish-out-of-the-water like in "The Out-of-Towners" but Arthur Hiller's travel-comedy has one edge over "Avanti!", its heart was at the right place.

A very VERY fine and funny Billy Wilder Film - MUCH under-rated.

[mwarburton · 10/10 · 22 February 2006]

Avanti is many things and this is why it has and may never receive the acclaim it deserves. Some may dismiss it or indeed try to define it simply as a rom-com. It is SO much more. It is a love story and a very moving one at that. It is a farce. It is a more straight forward comedy. It is a delightful and dexterous comedy-Film that combines European and American cultures and for once melds them beautifully. Lemmon gives one of his best performances, whilst Juliet Mills gives the performance of her career. Clive Revill almost steals the film, and all the supporting Actors are superb. How Juliet Mills & Jack Lemmon did not only not get nominated but not win Oscars for Avanti! is beyond me. And right the way through the writing is superb and soaring above all of it the class, the quality, the brilliance of one of the great Film-makers of all time, Billy Wilder. This film is for adults, it is not a family movie, and it's all the better for it. It's brave, bold and deeply funny and humane. You really would have to be deeply cynical and appallingly humourless not to find this Film funny and moving. Got get it on DVD today, I'd be astonished if you don't make a life-long friend with this movie once you've watched it.

Let's talk about Sacco & Vanzetti

[sasso67 · 6/10 · 1 July 2001]

"Let's talk about Sacco and Vanzetti" says the italian director of the hotel when Ambruster Jr. asks "Is this the way the justice works in Italy?". Yes, you have to know someone's brother in law to make things work in Italy, but no innocent will end on the electric chair at least. After all, Italy "is an emotion", as Miss Piggott says. This is not the best film by Billy Wilder, but you have to see it just for Jack Lemmon's performance. I already miss Jack Lemmon (July 1, 2001).

Why does no one make movies like this anymore?

[yamxt600 · 10/10 · 22 August 2010]

I have to admit that I am usually more into movies like Fight Club or Lord of the Rings and so I watched Avanti only because there was really nothing else on TV and I was too lazy to put in a DVD.

And then something magic happened: I got totally sucked into this movie, up to the point that I had tears in my eyes in the final scene.

Jack Lemmon has always been a great actor, but in this movie he's absolutely awesome. Juliet Mills is beautiful, charming and Clive Revill as omnipresent hotel director with dozens of relatives is simply hilarious.

And the story... Well, if you didn't believe in love before, then Billy Wilder shows you that it really does exist - and that it does not matter who you are and where you come from. Only the moment counts.

Don't make the mistake to ignore this jewel just because it might be a bit older or because you think romantic comedies are just for girls. This movie has everything cinema is about and I thank Billy Wilder for creating it.

More conceptually funny than actual funny

[lanierhunt · 7/10 · 22 February 2016]

"Avanti!" had me scared for a while. It presents itself as a "fish out of water" comedy, and, dare I say it, flounders. But, as the film advances, it grabs a zipper from the back of its neck and reveals itself to be a black, romantic-comedy--and a decent one, at that.

The film stars Jack Lemmon as a boorish American businessman, forced to visit Italy--a country where everyone's got a cousin for every job-- to pick up and return his recently deceased father. Not to give anything away, he meets a young woman with a self-prescribed weight- problem- -I don't see it--who may or may not have some relation to his father's death. The two proceed to develop a connection, in a curiously charming fashion.

Billy Wilder is, to me, the greatest screenwriter of them all, writing not only some of the greatest comedies of all time ("Some Like it Hot," "One, Two, Three"), but also the greatest dramas ("Ace in the Hole," "Sunset Boulevard"). If Shakespeare had been born some 400 years later, he would be a Wilder fan, or maybe even Wilder himself. It's crime against humanity that Wilder never adapted to the screen "Much Ado About Nothing."

"Avanti!" fails to reach the heights of Wilder's career, but it still contains moderate doses of that tigerish Wilder wit, which usually comes in fast-food supersized portions, making this film seem a bit cruel. While there are witticisms abound, hardly any of them land, and they feel like valiant efforts which should have been scrunched up and tossed.

Juliet Mills is absorbing as Pamela Piggot, a relatively optimistic woman with the self-esteem of a teenage girl with leprosy. It's a wonder she never found her place in the business. Lemmon is as fun to watch as ever, though he's not given much to work with, dialogue- wise, character-wise or otherwise-wise (Wilder reference).

A lame comedy that gets blacker, more romantic and generally better as it goes on, "Avanti!" is a side-step in the career of an all-time great already past his prime. Nonetheless, it's still charming, and more conceptually funny than actually funny.

An underrated treasure !

[Suze-13 · 10/10 · 5 August 1999]

Full of wit and warmth, this movie is Billy Wilder's best and one of the most delightful movies ever to have come out of Hollywood! Good Lemmon and Mills, but Clive Revill is absolutely delicious and Edward Andrews does a fine turn too. I never see a daffodil without thinking of this film....

A sweet, if a bit odd, romance

[davidmvining · 7/10 · 12 December 2019]

Billy Wilder occasionally made a movie romance where the underlying logic of the central relationship can raise some eyebrows if you think about it for too long. The budding romance between a military officer and the grown woman he thinks is only fourteen years old in The Major and the Minor is the most obvious example, but Avanti! fits as well. Not thinking too deeply into what brings Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills' characters together (as well as Jack Lemmon's own personal life away from Italy) helps the movie though, just getting swept up in the moment with the characters.

Wendell Armbruster Jr. has just received notice that his father died in Italy, and he needs to get from Baltimore to the small Italian island of Ischia in order to claim the body. From the get go, nothing goes well. He received word while he was golfing, so he climbs onto the airplane in red plaid pants and a red cardigan, not exactly appropriate attire for making funeral arrangements. He convinces a fellow passenger to switch clothes with him, but they fail to switch passports causing problems at passport control. He meets a British woman on the train from Rome to Naples who seems to know him pretty well, but he doesn't know her. Assigning her knowledge to an article written about him in Newsweek, he thinks little of her until he sees her on the ferry to Ischia and she shows up looking for the hotel manager in his hotel room.

Wendell's father had a secret. He had been coming to this hotel for a month every year for ten years not to simply unwind and find peace away from his busy life as top executive in a very large firm. He was coming to have a long term affair with Katherine Piggott, Pamela's mother. Faced with mounting challenges from Italian life and bureaucratic reality, Wendell and Pamela find themselves spending a few days together in the same hotel as their parents had. They even end up putting on their parents' clothes, sitting at their parents' table, drinking their parents' drinks, and eating their parents' food before doing some of the things their parents did together like a skinny dip out to a small rock just off the island.

Essentially, they follow exactly in their parents' footsteps and end up replicating their romance. Falling for each other like they are taking up the mantle from their parents. It plays rather sweetly in the film with Wendell finding himself actually taking time to take in life and Pamela opening herself up to someone for the first time since her last boyfriend walked out on her and she developed issues with how she views her body.

Around this sweet little romance is a cast of Italian characters, most prominently Carlo Carlucci, the hotel's manager. He provides a lot of assistance on the particulars of navigating the Italian bureaucracy and greasing the skids of the romance between Wendell and Pamela. He provides a lot of uptight looking Italian suave that contrasts amusingly with his libertine views on love. There's also a late addition of an American diplomat who deputizes a corpse in order to cut through the red tape and get the appropriate people out of the country and to America.

The plot moves beyond the romance, though. Bodies get stolen and recovered. An extra coffin gets ordered on accident and used when a new body appears. Bodies get switched with other bodies and buried locally in Italy. It's sweet how it all plays out with Wendell coming to terms with his father's infidelity and embracing his own.

And that's where I get just the littlest bit confused. I thought Wendell had called his wife an ex-wife at the beginning, but it becomes obvious later that they're still married when she calls him later. So, the point of the movie is that Wendell needs to not only accept his father's infidelity but have an affair himself? Since the wife is never seen and barely mentioned, it's one of those uncomfortable realities that you're not really supposed to think about that much, but I get the impression that if asked, Wilder would say, "Yes! Men should be allowed affairs from their wives!" It's not exactly a message I would embrace, but Wilder's movies aren't really message focused in general. It never feels like the point, just the situation of the film.

The central romance is sweet. The Italians provide a lot of nice comedy. The island provides a lot of wonderful imagery. It's an unchallenging, nice comedy that fits its two and a half hour runtime surprisingly well.

An amusing love story, beautifully done.

[Tim-177 · 10/10 · 11 March 1999]

Jack Lemmon is wonderful as the self-centered American businessman who gradually becomes more sensitive to the plight of fellow traveler Juliet Mills, who gives a very sensitive performance. Clive Revill's wry performance as the hotelier Carlucci is a delight. The location scenery is lush and gorgeous. The more conservative viewers may have a problem with the nudity in this movie, but it's still a good find. And I agree with Leonard Maltin that it's sadly underrated. It's well worth a look.

an unusual adventure!

[willrams · 7/10 · 30 March 2003]

Having been a fond admirer of Billy Wilder films, I picked this one up at the library yesterday. Have never seen this one. This time Jack Lemmon goes to Italy to pick up his father's corpse who had been living there with Julia Mills for over ten years. Funny, funny and goofy situations, but I got a little bored. I still enjoyed it because Jack Lemmon is such a great actor. There is some frontal nudity, but nothing objectionable; quite funny!

Wish I could have liked it more

[charmadu · 2/10 · 23 March 2020]

Let me start by saying I'm a Jack Lemmon fan=atic and will watch anything he's in. That said, I was disappointed by this one. I found Lemmon and Mills to be entirely lacking in chemistry and I wondered why he hadn't just gone with Lynn Redgrave and instead of making her gain weight, rewrite the part so she just thinks of herself as fat. (As it was, Juliet Mills hardly came across as fat, despite having gained 25 pounds allegedly, for the film.) I didn't believe for a nanosecond that these two fell for each other, ever. The script is quite dated and as an older female, left me wincing at all the erased women in the film, including Jack's wife and mother. The plot meanders and sags.... a lot. I found myself looking at the time. The best part of the film was a 10 second joke Lemmon tells towards the end about going to a NY Eve party in NYC, having a WONDERFUL time, and then realizing the next day he had gone to the wrong address. If only the film had been more reflective of that level of Jack's unique gift of humor and had given him a better match of a mate.