Mjeteconer Just perfect...

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

cincywalsh This movie was a great parody of the various heist films made at the time. I have one question that I hope someone can help me with. I had seen this movie at the time of its release and loved it. About a year ago, I was thinking about it and got it to show to my wife. It was everything that I remembered, except for one thing. I have a distinct visual memory of one of the gang slipping down a coal chute to get into a building and coming out glistening and announcing " they converted to oil". But this scene wasn't in the movie. Am I crazy or was there more than one version? Could they have changed the film at some point during the intervening years? My memory of the scene is so exact I hate to think I've made this up and believed it all these years.

jzappa As a veteran of heist movies, I think my opinion is valid when I say that it's not so much a spoof of heist films like Rififi as it is just a funny movie about thieves who bumble their way through what could be a much slicker and less complicated heist if the thieves from Rififi were pulling it off instead. The movie enjoys its fair share of little con tricks and bait-and-switch-oriented goings-on, mostly played for laughs of surprise. Perhaps Big Deal On Madonna Street is a little too laid back to really be as memorable as I was thinking it would be, but it is very funny. It has several great sight gags and well-timed moments of Italian-faced goofiness.The most entertaining thing about the film is the fact that it's Italian. The Italian cast is so jampacked with overt stereotypes, everyone gesturing wildly and saying, "Mamma Mia!" The outcome of the heist is such a ridiculous slur on the comic strip archetype of Italians, something twice or thrice as hilarious to an American audience. However, the appeal is not just in the humor in what is either an Italian self-parody or an unaware display of every mocked Italian institution. It's also the extroverted, old-fashioned world of your average Italian in this film. The first half hour of the film is a bunch of characters scrambling to find a friend who will take the rep for someone for a little while in prison, and everything continually gets more complicated and more tangled, and so many different people end up in prison. Not only do I find it amusing how nonchalant everyone is in deciding whether they will do this favor that involves spending time in jail or not, but I'm also fascinated about the idea that in Italy, crooks aren't so much worried about what will happen to them when they go to prison as they're worried to death of what their mother will think of them or how their mother will be so wounded by what has come of her son. It's almost a beautiful mindset, if you ask me.Big Deal On Madonna Street is no masterpiece, no movie that you desperately want to come back to, but it's very funny and an enjoyable piece of European cinema.

rolee-1 One character approaches another to get him to take the rap for a crime. But he can't do it, so he suggests someone else. The third character can't do it either. Soon a half dozen people are in search of someone to take the rap. They eventually decide that they need someone without a previous criminal record. But none of them knows anyone without a criminal record.I had no idea it was going to be a comedy when I first started watching it. By the end I was laughing out loud. It's a little slow, but many Italian movies are a little slow and caper films usually build slowly. But it is thoroughly enjoyable with some gags that I've never seen anywhere else in film. Cosimo's bank heist was very amusing.If you've just recently watched The Bicycle Thief, and are depressed by the bleakness of life shown there, this movie is the perfect antidote. It shows the lighter side of people who are down on their luck.

Robert Hirschfeld I suspect that it's hard to find this gem for rental purposes, which is a shame. A take-off on the classic French film noir, Rififi, it stands up wonderfully and deserves greater recognition. Monicelli is too little known as a director in the US, I think. Louis Malle attempted a remake of this some years back, to disastrous effect, and now there's a new attempt out, called "Welcome to Collinswood"; my hunch is that, while it might be better than the Malle version, it won't match the original. A group of bumbling small-time thieves plan and try to execute a heist, but nothing goes right. As the gang's leader, a punchy boxer with more attitude than ability, Vittorio Gassmann is wonderful, as is everyone else in the cast. Special notice should be given to the marvelous character comedian, Toto, and--in a small role, buried well down in the credits, the young Marcello Mastroianni. Also featured is another youngster, Claudia Cardinale. If you've seen Rififi, you'll find this comedy a particular joy. If you haven't, you'll like it, anyway. Why doesn't someone rerelease this?