American businessman Wendell Armbruster (Lemmon) is summoned to Italy after a car accident claims the lives of his father and his father's secret mistress! And when the mistress' daughter (Juliet Mills) also arrives – and the bodies of both of their parents disappear – the two instant foes are brought together in a baffling mystery…and an affair of the heart!
(18 votes)
2.
The complete obscurity of Avanti is a cinematic injustice that needs to be rectified. Jack Lemmon and director Billy Wilder made their share of hits together (Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, for starters), but this wry, melancholy comedy was completely out of touch with its time (which recalls a Wilder one-liner from the 1970s: "Who the hell would want to be in touch with these times?"). It may have flopped badly in 1972, but it wears well in retrospect. Lemmon plays a jerk American businessman called to Italy to pick up the body of his father, who died while enjoying a secret (and, it turns out, annual) liaison with a mistress. With the help of a delightful Englishwoman (Juliet Mills) who happens to be the daughter of the "other woman", Lemmon finds himself stepping in a few of dad's footsteps, and falling under the sway of the beguiling Italian atmosphere. It's a very leisurely movie, but that's part of the effect. Clive Revill delivers a gem of a performance as a heroic hotel manager, and Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley, daughter of Sir John) had her finest screen hour here. As a director, Wilder spent much of his early career camouflaging his romantic streak under a cynical front; here, despite many acerbic touches and the presence of death as the central plot device, the romance is in full flower under the rich Italian sun. --Robert Horton, Amazon.com
(18 votes)
3.
Jack Lemmon stars as Walter Armbruster in Wilder's leisurely romantic comedy set on the idyllic Mediterranean. When his father dies in a car crash on the isle of Ischia, the corporate executive quickly is on a plane. Once there, he learns from Pamela Piggott (Juliet Mills), a young Brit, that her mother, who was his father's mistress, was also killed. To make matter worse, bureaucratic rules prevent the release of the bodies for a few days. Not long after, both bodies are stolen from the morgue, and thieves are revealed to be an eccentric family of Italian vintners, who hold the corpses hostage until they are paid for the damage caused to their vineyard by the car crash. After reluctantly paying up, the irritable Walter returns to the hotel, where he even more reluctantly joins the free-spirited Pamela for a night of skinny-dipping. When a porter who attempts to blackmail the naked couple and is shot by his angry, very pregnant girlfriend, the hotel manager Carlucci (Clive Revill) is forced to put Walter and Pamela into the same room, while the murder investigation proceeds. Neither of them regrets his decision. A relaxed, sardonic comedy, juxtaposing the uptight American with the laid back European, it makes many of the same points about the excesses of American life as his earlier films in a far more mellow style.
(17 votes)
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