Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen

Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen
(Signore e signori buonanotte)

Film poster
Directed by Luigi Comencini
Nanni Loy
Luigi Magni
Mario Monicelli
Ettore Scola
Agenore Incrocci
Furio Scarpelli
Leo Benvenuti
Piero De Bernardi
Ugo Pirro
Ruggero Maccari
Produced by Franco Committeri
Written by Leonardo Benvenuti
Luigi Comencini, Piero De Bernardi, Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli, Luigi Comencini, Mario Monicelli, Nanni Loy, Luigi Magni, Ettore Scola, Ruggero Maccari, Ugo Pirro
Starring Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Paolo Villaggio, Marcello Mastroianni, Senta Berger, Adolfo Celi, Carlo Croccolo
Music by Lucio Dalla and Antonello Venditti
Cinematography Claudio Ragona
Edited by Amedeo Salfa
Release dates
  • 28 October 1976 (1976-10-28)
Running time
 118 minutes
Country Italy
France
Language Italian

Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen (Italian: Signore e signori, buonanotte, French: Mesdames et messieurs bonsoir) is a 1976 French-Italian comedy film starring Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Nino Manfredi, Paolo Villaggio, Marcello Mastroianni, Senta Berger, Adolfo Celi and Felice Andreasi.[1]

Plot

The film in a satirical and grotesque manner, which tells various episodes of low corrupt society of Italy in the 1970s. The journalist Paolo T. Fiume (Marcello Mastroianni) is the thread of the various episodes of the film, as he himself does interviews in various situations to grotesque characters.

Episodes

Gianni Agnelli kidnapped

The Milanese businessman Gianni Agnelli is kidnapped by terrorists. The man, in order to obtain the amount of the ransom, makes a public announcement on the Italian news, declaring that a percentage will be deduct from the salary of his workers, putting a weak excuse of his great bond "familiar" with his lower employees.

English lesson

A very young and attractive TV presenter introduces the English class for children, showing parts of the body, with the particulars in respect of English words. Among the parts of the body, there are also the breast and pussy. After the English lesson, she meets a man (Vittorio Gassman), who presents himself as an Italian secret agent. The man is came from the girl for a mission of the Italian Consulate: to kill the African ambassador, who's arrived in Italy for a conference with the themes of peace, brotherhood, and the war on racism. The woman takes revenge by killing the Italian spy after the murder.

The bomb

In Rome a superintendent (Carlo Croccolo) discovers that the police station, which he presides, is in grave danger because of a hidden bomb. The superintendent calls the army and firemen, making evacuate the entire building. Except for a very senior employee, who for three years has been waiting for retirement. While the boys team are acting inside the barracks defusing the bomb, the leaders of the direction realize that there is a mistake: no bomb is about to explode, because the ticking that caused the alarm comes from an alarm clock. The boss of the police station shall meet in a secret area of Rome with the fire chief. The two are not going to make a fool of in front of the Italian and European stamp, so plan to really blow up in the air the building of the police headquarters. The problem is that the men, having planted the bomb, badly synchronize the clocks, and they end up killed in the explosion.

Sinite parvulos

In Naples the archbishop arrives, which rewards a group of poor kids as an example of charity and goodness to follow. One of the boys comes back home: his family consists of a mother pregnant and tired, that does not make she more to care for the dozens of children who gave birth. Her husband has left her, and it's up to the boy rewarded by the bishop, being the biggest, look after the little house. However, the young boy does not make him more alienating to live his life, and decides to kill himself by jumping from the balcony of the palace.

Eating kids

The event of the suicide of the Neapolitan child is picked up by a female journalist, who is holding a service on the theme of the great child poverty in Naples. As a guest in the transmission there is an Italian-German professor (Paolo Villaggio) who has a proposal to solve the problem. The man, looking through a satirical article of Jonathan Swift, says that the problem of overpopulation in Naples can be solved by eating babies. Proposing various methods to cook the children, the professor says that only poor children should be eaten, because they are more succulent.

The four politicians

Paolo T. Fiume invites to convenes on his tg four politicians of Naples, offering always the issue of poverty in the city, and its degradation both physical and cultural. The four men, hideous in the face and in speech, turn out to be each other relative, who shall be elected at each other in the various political offices of the big city. Furthermore, the four, to divert the discussion, weave a gibberish that celebrates Naples; Finally, the four are taken from hysterics, and eat the model of the city of Naples, which is placed on the table for discussion. Paolo bewildered by the madness of those politicians, chases them away by kicking.

The General

During a triumphal march of sharpshooters on the occasion of a celebration of the Italian army, a general (Ugo Tognazzi) runs to the bathroom before receiving a medal of honor. The man is all of a piece, but the day starts badly for him, because he drops a jewel in the water full of mud. The general seeks to recover the precious object, but everything he gets dirty poop, and to the shame he shoots himself in the head.

Inspector Tuttumpezzo

The inspector Tuttumpezzo is a funny character in a television series for children. The man is presented as a brave and incorruptible general, who goes to the house of a politician to arrest him. The politician (Adolfo Celi) is a corrupt man: the inspecot knows this, but soon is deceived by the man who, taking advantage of the party that he has organized in his villa, turns the inspector into a waiter.

The character of the day

Ugo Tognazzi is a homeless man who is being interviewed by a journalist. The poor man has a method of his own to live for the day, begging and deceiving institutions to get some service. When the homeless man presents his cabin to the reporter, the man on the TV makes him a simple question. However, the question that comes to meat, makes crazy the poor man, he does not eat more meat for years.

The Disgraziometro

Paolo Villaggio is the host of a rubbish television program, called "the Disgraziometro", where are in the triumph ignorance and vulgarity of competitors. The objective of the game consists of a list obscene, by competitors, of misfortunes that have happened to the participants. The most absurd misfortune does win the most unfortunate competitor.

The Holy Throne

An Italian TV series illustrates the conspiracies of power that's present in the Vatican between the cardinals to get to the holy throne. The noble families of cardinals who are in fight the Piazza-Colonna and the Canareggio. Rome, 18th century: when the last pope dies of old age, the cardinals begin to quarrel among themselves. Two cruel bishops kill most of the Cardinals for not voting safe for the white smoke. One day the two cardinals decide a compromise: choose a puppet pope to agree on favors to be shared. The choice of papa puppet falls to the priest Felicetto Caprettari (Nino Manfredi), sick for years, which is now on the verge of death. The two bishops at the time convince him to get himself elected pope. When Felicetto is crowned in his room, in a heartbeat he comes back healthy and cured of all ills. The two bishops believe that it is a miracle, but in reality Felicetto reveals the two that he pretended to be sick for many years, waiting for the good chance to be crowned pope. Now that Felicetto is the Holy Father, order that the two cardinals are executed.
His governorship, however, has no positive proposals for Church reform.

The lounge of the caryatids

At the Chamber of Deputies of Montecitorio, there's celebrating the fourteenth term of President Giovanni Leone. The presidents, senators, the honorable and the archbishops, all seniors who have passed a hundred years, applaud the government's exorbitant length of Giovanni Leone with a passionate speech: the spokesman of Pope Paul VI is a man so old that he can not to articulate complete sentences. At the end of the speech, all present applaud moved, persuaded to do good for the people of Italy, and with a wild dancing a Neapolitan mazurka.

Cast

References

  1. ↑ "New York Times: Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen". NY Times. Retrieved 2 September 2008.
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