“Avanti!” (1972) is a Billy Wilder film that misfires on one cylinder. It gets you to your destination, but it’s not the smoothest ride. I give it a mild recommendation because it’s a rare rom-com that operates out of bounds of the Western world’s established morals – the protagonist cheats on his wife with the film’s approbation. And it makes us think about different bureaucratic structures when we see Italy’s gears stop cold for lunch and church.
Adapting the play by Samuel A. Taylor (also the play writer of “Sabrina”), Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond aim to create laughs out of these unorthodox themes, so I must acknowledge that I wasn’t laughing – despite the usually reliable Jack Lemmon in the lead role. He plays Mr. Armbruster Jr., who must retrieve the body of his father – killed in a car accident in Italy – and rush back to Baltimore for the funeral.
There is some good dialog in a vacuum, but “Avanti!” (“Forward!”) lacks the rhythmic patter of Wilder’s best films. It slows things down but also has bursts of chaos, which fits with Italian society, but that makes it hard for punchlines to land.
“Avanti!” (1972)
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond; Samuel A. Taylor (play)
Stars: Jack Lemmon, Juliet Mills, Clive Revill
As a character piece, it’s subtly effective. Lemmon starts off unusually unlikeable, as Armbruster is obsessed with his corporation like Bogart’s character in “Sabrina,” but from a state of inertia, not passion for the products. He’s a more stereotypical executive, rushing from the golf course to the plane as the action begins. But then he gradually adjusts to the Italian pace of life as it takes time to find a coffin, get the permits filed, etc.
Juliet Mills plays Britisher Miss Piggott, the standard “woman who helps get a man on track” role but with a twist. In town to retrieve her mother’s body, as she has been killed in the same accident, Miss Piggott can stop and smell the roses and lacks Mr. Armbruster’s hang-ups, as illustrated in her famous nude swimming scene.
The anti-‘Seven Year Itch’
Armbruster is shocked to learn his father was amid a two-months-a-year, 10-year affair with Miss Piggott’s mother, whereas Miss Piggott – in her mother’s confidence — had long since embraced the relationship as sweetly romantic. As “Avanti!” progresses, the way she helps Ambruster see the world differently is partly by encouraging a romance with her.
This isn’t some bizarre misfire by the screenwriters; the message is intended: While it’s important that affairs be kept secret, the movie’s unorthodox values say, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with them, and possibly something right. “Avanti!” is 180 degrees removed from 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch” (wherein the protagonist remains heroic only so long as he fights off a flirty Marilyn Monroe), but that’s in part because we’re comparing a post-Hays Code movie with a Hays Code movie.
Without censors to decide for us, the question comes to the fore: Does “Avanti!” go too far? That depends on individual’s morals, but it should be pointed out that in order to get its out-of-the-box message to land, it cheats. Armbruster’s wife never appears on screen; he only talks to her on the phone. Miss Piggott is single and free.
The corpse-based comedy likewise stays inbounds thanks to deliberate calibration. “Avanti!” is not “Weekend at Bernie’s,” as we never see a body. But the way the bodies are juggled around is insane. Among the many hoops Armbruster must jump through is paying off grape farmers who have stolen the bodies.
It’s crucial that we never see the elder Armbruster or Miss Piggott’s mother, alive nor dead. The wrongness of comedy based on corpse mistreatment would overwhelm us and undermine anything serious about “Avanti!”
It raises daring questions, but makes the viewer answer them
Even though Lemmon and Mills lack sizzling chemistry, one could make a case that opposites attract in this case. She goes with the flow, he doesn’t. But when he’s forced to take a deep breath due to bureaucracy that won’t budge, he gets into her flow.
“Avanti!” banks on another cinematic trick, as Miss Piggott is the movie version of overweight. Granted, this is her own hang-up. No other character volunteers that she is fat — although the distracted Armbruster agrees with her assessment when prompted, essentially falling for the “Does this dress make me look fat?” trick. In cinematic terms, Armbruster is a decent man because he finds this “fat” woman attractive, but what if she was 233 pounds instead of the 133 pounds that the movie admits she is?
Miss Piggott’s woe-is-me attitude (although smoothly quashed by Mills’ casual performance) is also worth questioning, since she has several men after her. Armbruster is different from the other men (none of whom we get to know) only due to his class status, yet Miss Piggott is also the film’s standard-bearer that class doesn’t matter.
With an old-world score leisurely playing behind everything, the picture gradually wore me down to grudging appreciation. It’s an instructive portrayal of Italy, and Wilder’s commitment to a foreign take on morality makes it stand out. “Avanti!” maintains its throughlines; I just wish it had more laugh lines.
Wilder Wednesdays looks at the films of legendary writer-director Billy Wilder.