Relishing Lemmon and Wilder’s final teaming.
One one level, Billy Wilder’s 1972 comedy Avanti! proves to be a textbook case of whether or not a film with a male and female lead can carry off a movie together without many sparks flying between them. Indeed, the romance aspect of this silly yet endearing comedy is the only area where the film comes off as forced. Although an attraction eventually develops between the two leads, it cannot help but feel like an obvious device that’s awkwardly inserted. However it’s the only aspect worth criticizing in a movie brimming with old-school merriment, charm, pathos, and just a lot of fun. If nothing else, Avanti! should be given much-deserved props for fearlessly going against the grain of what the cinematic climate was like in the ‘70s in favor of throwback qualities which never fail the audience once.
In Avanti!, a well-to-do, uptight businessman named Wendell Armbruster Jr. (Jack Lemmon) is traveling to Italy to collect his father’s body, who died in a car accident while on a short vacation in the country. Wendell’s intentions of bringing his dead father back to America so his wife, family, and friends can give him a proper funeral is sidetracked by an endless series of Italian red tape. However, Wendell has help in the form of Carlo (Clive Reville), the hotel manager, who aids the flustered American as best he can. Adding to the trouble is the revelation that Wendell’s father was having a rendezvous with another woman who also died in the accident. When Wendell meets the quirky and flighty Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), the dead woman’s daughter, his head further turns as he tries to keep it together and get his father’s body back home.
Part of the charm of Avanti! is just how much of an oddity the film is. The way the movie treats death as a form of comedy is a decidedly European trait that is made palatable in an American film thanks to the presence of Lemmon. During the course of Avanti!, the bodies get kidnapped, switched, and eventually start to pile up, leading to one uproarious situation after another. At other times, there’s a sincere gentleness to the passing of the two people in the film and great reflection at what their lives, especially their final days, said about the way they chose to embrace their time on earth. Avanti! also benefits from a pair of stellar protagonists. For all his hang-ups and inability to hold it together, Wendell is the only sane aspect of the film. The way he navigates Italy’s unorthodox customs, Pamela’s eccentricities, and the pressures of his life back home gives the film fire and a pulsating groove that remains steady. Likewise, the movie has a fun and intriguing lead in Pamela. She’s the prime example of woman who believes the world to be a place full of possibilities and endless wonder, even during the times it lets her down.
At certain moments, the humor of Avanti! can come off rather base and somewhat dated, even by the standards of the time. These instances typically come when Wilder tries to turn his film into a farce, aiming for a tone and a mood which is never fully nailed. The reason for this lies primarily in the fact that the movie is a factory of hilarious one-liners, which are capably delivered by every member of the cast. “Well, it doesn’t look like a Hilton,” Wendell remarks when first entering the hotel his father was staying at. “I accept the compliment,” responds an elated Carlo. When Italian law dictates bodies must be transported out of the city using a special type of coffin, an exasperated Wendell exclaims, “Come on! You can dig up a couple of coffins,” to which Carlo puzzlingly asks, “You want second-hand coffins?” Avanti!’s ending is fraught with the kind of dark humor which is incredibly hard to get right, yet comes off without a hitch to the point where even the most conservative audience member would find the fittingness of it in relation to the characters. And even if they didn’t, the fun getting to that point remains intact.
Wendell is a standard Lemmon role, which isn’t necessarily the worst thing. The actor brings his unique energy and haplessness personality to the table for what is another fun (not to mention Golden Globe winning) performance. By this point, actor and director had established such a well-defined rapport that the result is pure movie bliss. Not known for her screen work, Mills conveys such an effervescent spark in the role of Pamela. The actress brings forward the character’s off center thinking as well as her natural charm, creating an unforgettable screen heroine in the process. Finally, Reville may be the funniest straight man in any classic comedy, garnering as many laughs in the simplest of ways. His reactions to Lemmon’s manic qualities remain priceless.
Speaking of the Golden Globes, Avanti! was certainly well-represented at that year’s ceremony, receiving a half dozen nominations as well as a nod from the Writer’s Guild Association. Despite this, the film is not considered much of a classic, and to be honest, it doesn’t really deserve to be It’s unconventional nature proves somewhat in keeping with the level of anonymity it retains to this day. Yet there’s an unmistakable whimsy and unexpected tenderness to the film that can neither be refuted nor resisted. This is the kind of movie that makes a person re-evaluate their life through a cinematic journey that’s part European, part American, and all around unforgettable. Perhaps it’s Pamela herself who sums up Avanti! best. “I guess there is something to what it says in the tourist guide,” she says. “What does it say?” asks Wendell. “It says Italy is not a country; it’s an emotion.” “Well, it’s certainly been an experience,” declares Wendell. Indeed it has.
The Package
Interviews from Mills and Reville, both of whom share fond memories of their experiences making the film, accompany the release of Avanti!.
The Lowdown
Though not an instant Wilder classic, Avanti! is nevertheless a minor cinematic treasure.
Avanti! is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.
