Avanti! is one of those romantic comedies that stands the test of time. Although the humor and romantic tension is very much of its time (early '70s), it still resonates with a cosmopolitan modern audience. I find this movie and its romantic set-up as delightful as its Ischia setting. Jack Lemmon is perfectly suited to his role as the uptight U.S. businessman dismayed by his situation and, especially, the charmingly corrupt and pleasure-first attitudes of the locals. You've seen him play this type of part before, but he does it effortlessly and is very funny. But Juliet Mills as Pamela made the movie for me. I think most female viewers of this movie, especially those of us past 40, will relate to her humorous attempts to deal with her weight and her desire to throw caution to the wind in the name of romance. I don't think she's ever been better than she was in this movie.

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.

1972. Back in the day when romantic comedies were made in such a way that both sexes could watch them, not just women. Nowadays, when you read "romantic comedy" in relation to the latest formulaic piece of celluloid crap that Hollywood is desperately trying to hype, you can expect garbage; some lame-brained, unfunny mess with Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz mugging like eager-to-please amateurs - should the casting be at its very worst. (Or the amazing non-talents of an Ashton Kutcher and an annoying personality of a La Lopez. The list goes on and on.)A! works because Jack Lemmon isn't a former Mickey-Mouse-Club amateur with a squeaky girly voice, and Juliet Mills isn't a perpetually giggling non-beauty with the body shape of an overgrown pencil. Mills is shapely, curvaceous, charismatic, sexy and pretty, and Lemmon is funny and interesting. There is actual chemistry between them, the story is fun, the gags work, and there is no crude, lewd, low-brow, cheap-ass, teenage approach to sex that we get to see in comedies of recent years, in which having sex is always referred to as "f**king" or "screwing", the F word being a poor substitute for a total lack of inspiration and humour.The only drawback to A! is its length. At well over two hours it does violate somewhat the unwritten rule about comedies and horror films not exceeding 90 minutes. Trust Billy Wilder, that senile old Commie, to have actually made a mention of the Sacco & Vanzetti case. No doubt Billy considered those murdering anarchists as totally innocent. (God forbid a Marxist ever gets punished for anything, even genocide.) Later on, he has an Italian local give the right-arm Nazi salute to the Republican Ambassador. Billy, Billy, Billy, what are we to do with you? Must you include your unsubtle political propaganda even in a harmless little romantic comedy?But if you thought Billy's delusion ended with his extremist politics, think again. He thought that he had injected too much humour into what was meant to be a drama! He stated that they had intended to make a movie more like "The Apartment" (i.e. they wanted it to stink so it could win Oscars). Good thing they "failed", because not only does that vastly overrated movie stink, but I can't imagine how the hell A! could have possibly worked as a drama.The two Wilder movies do have something in common though (apart from Lemmon): both tend to ridiculously idealize women who latch on to (older) married men. Mills's mother was even said to have hidden her poor financial situation from Lemmon's father (the millionaire) because she "loved him", hence that she never received any gifts or financial aid from him. That is so over-the-top stupid that it's almost funny on its own.

The incomparable Jack Lemmon is wealthy industrialist Wendell Armbruster who at the last minute travels to the Italien resort of Ischia to pick up the corpse of his father who was killed in an automobile accident. Lemmon crosses paths with free-spirited London shop girl Pamela Piggott Juliet Mills who is revealed to be the daughter of Lemmon's Mistress who have been secretly having a ten-year summertime affair. Straitlaced Wendell tries to avoid a scandal After some confusion with the bodies and a blackmail attempt by unscrupulous locals, Wendell and Pamela extend their parent's affair into the next generation. 'Avanti' is an underrated classic