Review: One Screening Only
Big Deal on Madonna Street | Mario Monicelli | Italy | 1958 | 106 min
UW Cinematheque, Chazen Museum of Art, Sunday February 1, 2:00pm»
A rag-tag collection of would-be criminals assemble to attempt a pawnshop robbery in a comic heist classic that kicks off the “Mario Monicelli Comedies” series at the UW Cinematheque.
One line never heard in Big Deal on Madonna Street is “I love it when a plan comes together.” In fact, nothing seems to go right for Cosimo (Memmo Carotenuto) from the very first scene where he bungles a car theft and ends up in jail. Things seem to improve for Cosimo when he learns from a cellmate about the easiest heist scenario he has ever heard. But Cosimo cannot pull the job himself unless he can get out of jail by finding someone to take the fall for the attempted car theft. Thus Cosimo sets into motion a series of twists and turns that quickly becomes a comedy of errors.
Cosimo’s partner in crime Capannelle (Carlo Pisacane) and girlfriend Norma (Rossana Rory) search for someone willing to spend time in the cooler for Cosimo for 100,000 lire. Capannelle is turned down by Mario (Renato Salvatori), a young hooligan who steals baby carriages to avoid car alarms; Ferribotte (Tiberio Murgia), a Sicilian who aggressively protects his younger sister’s virtue; and Tiberio (Marcello Mastroianni), a photographer who has pawned his camera to pay for baby food while his wife is in prison for smuggling cigarettes. Despite turning Capannelle down, the three men help him find Peppe (Vittorio Gassman) a boxer with a glass jaw who could use the money after his career hits the canvas. They even offer an extra 50,000 lire of their own to sweeten the deal for Peppe. Things backfire for Cosimo and Peppe, however, when the judge decides to throw them both in jail.
Believing that Peppe will serve three years in jail, Cosimo tells Peppe about his plan to break through a poorly constructed partition wall separating a vacant apartment from a crib (a pawnshop’s jewel safe). But Peppe quickly gets out on probation, and plans his own sting based on Cosimo’s lead. When Mario, Ferribotte, Tiberio and Norma learn that Peppe has been released, they insist on getting their 50,000 lire back. Peppe tells them about Cosimo’s heist idea, which leads all of them to Madonna Street.
Big Deal on Madonna Street is possibly Monicelli’s most famous film, making it an easy choice to kick off the UW Cinematheque’s Monicelli’s series. It is one of two Monicelli films available from the Criterion Collection, along with The Organizer (1963). Big Deal, whose Italian title is I soliti ignoti (idiomatically translated as “the usual suspects”), found international success because it both adhered to and played with expectations about post-war Italian cinema, referencing neo-realist dramas like The Bicycle Thieves (1948) and suspenseful heist films like Rififi (1955). Just as Bicycle Theives dramatizes post-war economic strife in images of shoddy neighborhoods and unemployment lines, Big Deal explores that milieu as a source of comedy.
In a funny early scene, Capannelle approaches some young boys playing soccer in a vacant lot. When he tells them he is looking for Mario, the boys reply that a thousand Marios live near there. When Capannelle clarifies that he means Mario the thief, the boys reply that a thousand thieves live near there. While Antonio in Bicycle Theives will do anything to get and keep a job, the men in Big Deal seem to do anything they can to avoid regular employment.
Lack of regular income, of course, leads to a life of crime. The code of honor among thieves in films like Rififi is played for laughs in Big Deal, and the cool professionalism of conventional heists is replaced by comic incompetence. The humor ranges from witty dialogue to physical slapstick, and the occasional intertitles harken back to silent-era comedies.
Italian cinema fans will be delighted by the early roles from Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale (as Ferribotte’s sister, Carmella), both of whom would work with Federico Fellini just a few years later in 8 1/2 (1963). But at the time of Big Street, neither of them approached the popularity of comic actor Totò, who has a small role here as professional thief Dante Cruciani. Totò will be seen again in the Cinematheque’s Monicelli series in The Passionate Thief (1960). The entire cast provides the right tone in both broad and subtle comic moments. But Vittorio Gassman stands out with a particularly strong performance, giving Peppe the right combination of macho hubris and neurotic insecurity.
