Product Description

In this hilarious lighthearted comedy from acclaimed writer/director Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond (The Apartment) a wealthy American discovers romance and the meaning of avanit while in Italy. Nominated for six Golden Globes - winning one - this "honey of a film" (Boxoffice) is as delightful as the Wilder/Diamond/Jack Lemmon classics Some Like it Hot and Irma La Douce!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!System Requirements:Starring: Jack Lemmon Juliet Mills Edward Andrews Clive Revill Directed By: Billy Wilder Running Time: 144 Min. Color Copyright 2003 MGM Studios.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 027616887610 Manufacturer No: 1004721

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9832 in DVD
• Brand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
• Released on: 2003-07-15
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 144 minutes

Amazon.com
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 '70s: "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. A very leisurely movie, but that's part of its effect. Clive Revill delivers a gem of a performance as a heroic hotel manager, and Juliet Mills (sister of Hayley, daughter of Oscar-winner 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

Customer Reviews

The Area Problem
I am certain that a more conspicuous warning about the DVD Area would help people to decide about buyng Films.Providing a solution to the problem would be better yet. In my case, I manage to see "Avanti" in good conditions.
Best Regards,
Luiz Alcide de Oliveira.

The Tagline Reads "Italy Was Full Of Surprises!" So Is This Well-Underated Gem!
When "Avanti!" was released in 1972, the world and its cinema had changed irrevocably. This gentle, slightly slow moving romantic-comedy about not-so-hip people had no real place in a film world gripped by gritty realism, escalating cursing and the depiction of ultra-violence. Still "Avanti!" (it means "forward") was nominated for 6 Golden Globes and won one - Best Comedy Actor for Jack Lemmon.

Produced and Directed by the incomparable Billy Wilder, it featured a fabulously inventive and witty script from the dynamite duo of Wilder and his long-time writing buddy I.A.L. Diamond. Check this out. Clive Revill (Nominated as Best Comedy Supporting Actor) is in the Hotel bus on route with Lemmon from the airport telling the busy executive of Armbruster Enterprises (his father's company) that all of Italy closes for lunch between one o'clock and four o'clock in the afternoon. The incensed and jittery Wendell is agog.
Jack Lemmon: "Three hours for lunch!"
Clive Revill: "Here we take our time...we cook our pasta...we drink our wine...we make our love..."
Jack Lemmon: "What do you do in the evening?"
Clive Revill: (Frowns) "We go home to our wives!"
"Avanti!" is full of stuff like this!

The story goes as so. Millionaire Wendell Armbrewster from Baltimore USA arrives in a hurry and ill-prepared in Italy to pick up the body of his father, killed in a car accident on the slopes of Naples. What he doesn't bargain for is that his bastion-of-morality father William was not alone in the car as it crashed into a vineyard. He was with his mistress Kate. In fact he'd gone to the beautiful and picturesque resort for 10 years to be with her. Both were in their late Sixties but giddily in love like kids.

On route (on the plane, boat and train) Wendell keeps meeting the prim and proper Penny Pritchett (a delightful and lovely Juliet Mills) from London, England. She seems to be everywhere he goes - and when she turns up at his hotel room too - Wendell works it out - she is the daughter of Kate, his father's mistress and there to pick up her mother's body! Italian shenanigans follow one after another to stave off the funeral in Baltimore the following Tuesday - the crafty Hotel staff trying to keep the scandal at bay, the ludicrous legal paperwork, no one works the weekends, missing bodies, more triplicate paperwork, blackmailing porters and vineyard guys, swimming naked to the rock their parents used to frequent and giving the local randy fishermen an eyeful (Mills has lovely breasts which Lemmon suddenly notices). And, of course, they slowly succumb to the magic of the place and fall in love themselves.

The humour is constant and the dialogue the same. For instance. Two zinc-lined coffins are needed from out of town before the bodies can be released, but the bodies get nicked by the vineyard guys who want compensation for their grapes "poisoned by death"! Lemmon listens to Hotel Owner's crafty and constant updates on their progress with increasing American uptightness. "Great! First we have two bodies and no coffins, now we have two coffins and no bodies!"

The two leads are of course part of the secret. As the years pass, your admiration for Jack Lemmon only grows. His range, his subtlety, the way he made it look easy - you realise how truly great an actor he was. He could do witty like no-one, crazy, charming, sensitive, uptight - but all the time with that everyman humanity that Jimmy Stewart had. Juliet Mills too - lovely, sexy in her way, sweet. She has a running joke about weight all through the film which she milks with subtlety and skill and provides exactly the right kind of gentle counter that Lemmon's character needs. Throw in a cast of brilliantly funny Italian locals, romantic locations and silly set-ups and you have a fantastic Sunday afternoon warmer. The print is also in beautiful shape.

This is the kind of film that makes me want to put a framed picture of Billy Wilder and his mischievious grin on the wall. And every time I pass it by, I'll look up at his beautiful lived-in face and I'll smile deep down inside. God bless you mate wherever you may be!

Do yourself a favour and check out this forgotten gem - or better still - buy it and keep it for that day you need a lift.

Arrivederci! Love birds!

Simply wonderful
My dad and I loved Jack Lemmon to bits. Matter of fact, so much so, that when my dad died back in 1995, I wrote Jack, and told him how many fond memories I had of us, sitting at home, or at the cinema, watching his work. Just a month later, I got a smashing, signed black & white photo, where Jack wished me all the best and thanked me for a lovely letter.

Jack's The Apartment is among my top 5, desert island films. It could just as easily be this one.

Avanti is one of those movies that can only be a Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon production. Anyone else just wouldn't do. The plot is neither naff, nor ropey, and everyone does a splendid job. The vistas and views of Italy are smashing and spot on, even though the story has that stage feel to it.

As is often the case with Jack Lemmons work, the humour is gut busting at times, without being forced. I can think of no other american actor with such an understaded dry wit as Jack, and that's one of the main reasons I love him. The other reason is easy to spot. He was such a loveable, everyman. Someone you would want as a friend, in part because you want to feel superior to someone, part because you want a friend you feel a need to take care of.

And, aside from anything else, for those of us who love that early 1970's look to movies, this really is a treat. The only other comedy I can think of that works as well as this, from the same period is Woody Allen's Play it again Sam.

I can only suggest that anyone who reads this treat themselves to this great gem!