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Among unfulfilled scatological functions, the eternal struggle for a crust of bread, and the impossibility of achieving sensual satisfaction, maestro Nando Cicero signs this proverbial parody of the film that was on everyone's lips at the time, due to its true and/or alleged scandals. You know my opinion on the original, and even a recent repeated viewing hasn't significantly raised my judgment. However, I have quite a fondness for Cicero's parody. Not so much because it attempts to take revenge on the Bertolucci classic as because it succeeds in recreating similar atmospheres, to the point where this film almost seems more sincere in describing the sexual/existential whirlwind of the protagonists.
Sure, the formulas of the farce are the classic ones of popular theater: hunger, misfortune, harassment, and the protagonist's impossible redemption. But Franchi, for the first time without Ingrassia, dressed in a camel overcoat, also appears charming and "branded." On the other hand, Brando, with his job as a night porter and his failures, wasn't necessarily doing better.
In "Ultimo Tango a Zagarol," the protagonist's wife is alive and well, perhaps too much so (Gina Rovere). Florida-extralarge with a hint of rustic appeal, she forces Franchi into a strict diet, only to prepare sumptuous dishes for her lover hidden in the attic (Nicola Arigliano). The latter, tired of the usual zum zum with the adulteress, complains that it's "always the same gruel" and seeks to sodomize Franchi, as if he hadn't been through enough with the mistress-Martine Beswick. She is the fatal unknown, the domino counterpart of Maria Schneider, who delights in making an enamored Franchi suffer within the walls of the barren apartment in Zagarolo (incidentally, a beautiful town in Lazio). She tortures him with electroshock, carried out with electrical cables attached to the bed's frame, with multiple orgasms achieved only by brushing against the protagonist's fly, slapping her breasts in his face. (Martine Beswick had been a gypsy in "From Russia with Love" and the female lead in Damiani's "A Bullet for the General," where she's quite stunning with her hard, Spanish features).
The butter scene cannot be missed (in this case, from Polenghi Lombardo) which will obviously end up in Franchi's bread, leaving the poor lover disappointed and untouched. "Are we crazy?" Franchi exclaims. First comes the belly, then the fuss about the sacred family. In these moments, he recalls Totò with the sponge sandwich in "Fifa e arena," albeit with due differences in artistic stature.
Franchi's troubles did not end there: right alongside the unfortunate, there's the nouvelle vague director (played with pedantic grace by Franca Valeri). For a fistful of ten thousand, Franchi won't be able to relieve himself in peace; he'll have to relive his tragic childhood chased by a molosser, end up in the Tiber, and be crushed by a tram. Playing the part that fell to Schneider (meaning the truth film's protagonist by Leaud) deposits Franchi in an even more feminine dimension. It's the women who rule the roost in "Zagarol": the infamous wife, the biting lover, the prostitutes infesting Franchi's inn (unforgettable is the arrival of Jimmy il Fenomeno with prêt-à-porter floozie) and the not-so-in-skirt Jean-Pierre Leaud.
In short: I won't sing the praises of "Ultimo tango a Zagarol" just for the snobbish pleasure of overturning a status quo that I don't even have the tools to do so. I break a lance for this amusing parody, no, more, for this detoxifying remedy against the "seriousness" and "heights" of the original. "Ultimo tango a Zagarol" is a bit slow, and not all the ideas are first-rate or hit the mark. But there's a peculiar air, a sense of "In reality, it went like this" and some non-superficial traces of filmic adherence to the original.
Franco Franchi is at his peak and even handsome in the coat of coats in cinema history.
What will be under the sheet????
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