Big Deal on Madonna Street
Encyclopedia
Big Deal on Madonna Street is a 1958 Italian
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...

 criminal-comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...

, directed by Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli
Mario Monicelli was an Italian director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana , three times nominated for Oscar.-Biography:...

, and considered to be among the masterpieces of Italian cinema. Its original title translates as "the usual unknown persons", a journalistic and bureaucratic euphemism
Euphemism
A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

 for "unidentified criminals" or "usual suspects". The film is a comedy about a group of small-time thieves and ne'er-do-wells who bungle an attempt to burglarize a state-run pawn shop called Monte di Pietà in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

. As the film's heist scene bears a striking resemblance to that of the film Rififi
Rififi
Rififi is a 1955 French crime film adaptation of Auguste le Breton's novel of the same name. Directed by American filmmaker Jules Dassin, the film stars Jean Servais as the aging gangster Tony le Stéphanois, Carl Möhner as Jo le Suédois, Robert Manuel as Mario Farrati, and Jules Dassin as César le...

, the film is often considered a parody of that film.

The main roles are played by Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Mastroianni
Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, Knight Grand Cross was an Italian film actor. His honours included British Film Academy Awards, Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival and two Golden Globe Awards.- Personal life :...

, Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI , popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director...

, Renato Salvatori
Renato Salvatori
Renato Salvatori was an Italian multi-purpose character actor.-Biography:Salvatori was born in Seravezza, Province of Lucca....

, Carlo Pisacane
Carlo Pisacane (actor)
Carlo Pisacane was an Italian actor who performed in over 70 films, including spaghetti Westerns like Death Rides a Horse and parodies like For a Few Dollars Less...

, and Tiberio Murgia
Tiberio Murgia
Tiberio Murgia was an Italian film actor. He appeared in over 100 films between 1958 and 2009.-Selected filmography:* Big Deal on Madonna Street * Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti...

. The careers of both Gassman and Mastroianni were considerably helped by the success of the film—Gassman, in particular, since before then he was not deemed suitable for comedic roles. Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale
Claudia Cardinale is an Italian actress, and has appeared in some of the most prominent European films of the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of Cardinale's films have been either Italian or French...

 also featured in a minor role (a chaste, black-clad Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...

 girl, almost held prisoner at home by her overbearing brother, played by Tiberio Murgia), although she would later rise to fame for other work. The film is also notable for its breezy jazz score by the composer Piero Umiliani
Piero Umiliani
Piero Umiliani was an Italian composer of film scores, and is most famous for his song "Mah Nà Mah Nà".-Biography:Umiliani was born in Florence, Tuscany...

, who helped develop the style of the jazz soundtracks now considered characteristic of European films in the 1960s and 1970s.

The producers were initially skeptical about the film, and used some misleading tactics to hook the public's interest—such as the original poster featuring famous comedian Totò
Totò
Prince Antonio Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno De Curtis di Bisanzio Gagliardi, best known by his stage name Totò and nicknamed il principe della risata was an Italian comedian, film and theatre actor, writer, singer and songwriter...

 in a prominent position even though he has only a minor role.

The film is currently distributed in Region 1 by The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...

 and for the Italian market in Region 2 by 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...

.

Plot

A local thief, Cosimo, is arrested for the attempted theft of a car. After he is sentenced and put in prison, he begins immediately on his escape by telling his partners that he has a plan for a heist but that he needs their help to be freed. In order to assure his release, they find an acquaintance named Peppe with a clean criminal record to take blame for the theft in the hopes that the police will release Cosimo. They instead have both of them jailed. While Peppe is in jail, Cosimo tells him the plans for the heist of a safe in a pawnshop. After revealing the plans, Peppe tells him that he got off merely with probation, leaving him free to pursue the heist without Cosimo, much to the chagrin of Cosimo.

The heist entails the following: as the pawnshop is adjacent to a vacant apartment, they must first break into a small courtyard, climb onto the roof of another small apartment, and break in through a window of the vacant home. To accomplish this, they enlist the help of another local thief that is an expert on safes who tells them of a plan (similar to that of the film Rififi
Rififi
Rififi is a 1955 French crime film adaptation of Auguste le Breton's novel of the same name. Directed by American filmmaker Jules Dassin, the film stars Jean Servais as the aging gangster Tony le Stéphanois, Carl Möhner as Jo le Suédois, Robert Manuel as Mario Farrati, and Jules Dassin as César le...

, released a few years prior in 1955) to silence the alarm of the safe that they may break into it safely. While everything is planned, they discover that the vacant apartment has just become occupied by two spinsters and their young, attractive maid. Peppe learns from the young maid, with whom he flirts, that the two women never leave their apartment except on Thursday night. After arranging a date with the girl on this particular day, the group is distressed to learn that she quits her job and the women may in fact be there on the night.

Meanwhile, a number of misfortunes are incurred by the group: Cosimo, who had since been released from jail, dies in a botched robbery; Mario, another of the group, bails on the plan in favor of a legitimate life for the sake of a beautiful girl, while another of the group is partially crippled after being attacked by the man whose camera he stole earlier for the purpose of daytime reconnaissance of the pawnshop. Despite this, they proceed with the plan anyway after learning that the women will not be in the apartment. Notwithstanding a number of bumbling entries, they gain entry into the apartment. After first boring a hole through a water pipe, they are forced to staunch the flow of water while remaining quiet after a night porter enters the apartment to make a call. After these obstacles, they bore another hole, this time knocking out a portion of the wall, revealing another room in the same apartment. After they realize their plan was miscalculated, they leave the apartment dejected - albeit as free men. Peppe then decides to find legitimate work, much to the surprise of an elderly member of the group. The film ends with a newspaper article recounting a robbery by unknown persons of an apartment for food (which the men had eaten after their plan had crumbled.)

Sequels

A sequel directed by Nanni Loy
Nanni Loy
Nanni Loy was an Italian film, theatre and TV director.Loy was born in Cagliari, Sardinia...

 followed in 1960, reuniting the entire cast aside from Totò and Mastroianni, entitled Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti
Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti
Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti is a 1960 Italian comedy crime film directed by Nanni Loy...

(released in English as Hold-up à la Milanaise). A further sequel was directed by Amanzio Todini titled I Soliti ignoti vent'anni dopo (1987). It was released on DVD in the United States as Big Deal On Madonna Street - 20 Years Later by Koch Lorber.

Remakes

Two remakes of the film were shot in the USA: the 1984 film Crackers
Crackers (1984 film)
Crackers is a 1984 American film directed by Louis Malle. It was entered into the 34th Berlin International Film Festival.Written by Jeffrey Fiskin, the film is about a group of small-time out-of-luck thieves, led by the unemployed Weslake , who attempt to rob the neighborhood pawn shop owned by...

by Louis Malle
Louis Malle
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...

 (set in San Francisco), and the 2002 film Welcome to Collinwood
Welcome to Collinwood
Welcome to Collinwood is a 2002 American crime comedy film about five small-time criminals, from the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland, who try to organize one last big job...

by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo (set in Cleveland).

Awards

The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 at the 31st Academy Awards
31st Academy Awards
The telecast of the 31st Academy Awards is among the most infamous. The show’s producer Jerry Wald started cutting numbers from the show to make sure it ran on time. Unfortunately, he cut too much material and the ceremony ended 20 minutes early, leaving Jerry Lewis to attempt to fill in the time...

.

See also

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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