Il paramedico (1982)

Director:

Sergio Nasca

Writers:

Enrico Montesano (writer) &
Sergio Nasca (writer) ...

Plot:

At work, Mario Millio is the only male nurse not on strike. At home, his wife is more interested in calling the hot-line of a local TV-doctor...

Plot Keywords:

Lottery | Female Nudity | Sex Comedy | Italian Sex Comedy | Beautiful Woman

Cast

Enrico Montesano	...	Mario Millio
Edwige Fenech	...	Nina Millio
Leo Gullotta	...	Spartaco
Mauro Di Francesco
Marco Messeri
Enzo Robutti
Enzo Liberti
Ugo Fangareggi
Daniela Poggi
Enzo Cannavale	...	Avoccato Geonosa Carlina
Rossano Brazzi
Antonia Carmi
Calogero Buttà
Francesco Bagagli		(as Franco Bagagli)
Roberto Ceccacci

Also Known As:

The Paramedic (International: English title)

Runtime:

110 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Company:

Italian International Film

Movie Connections:

References "The Incredible Hulk" (1978)

One man and his Machina

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As soon as Edwige Fenech stopped doing nudity in films, the entire sub-genre of Italian sex comedies started to wither out and die (and of course, so did her acting career). This marks her first 'completely covered up' performance since the late sixties (her final nude appearance was in "Sballato, Gasato, Completamente Fuso") and already she's waisted in a droll supporting part as a bored, TV obsessed house wife. Sure, Daniella Poggi takes off her clothes a couple of times, but it just isn't the same. As a comedy it's not very engaging either. Though it is titled "Il Paramedico", leading man Enrico Montesano only spends about ten minutes working in an understaffed hospital before the writers (all six of them, including himself and the director) ran out of ideas and had him win 15 million Lire in the lottery to immediately spend on buying an expensive car. It seems that the most important truism half a dozen scribes could come up with was this: men loves cars, women love watching television. So they might just have well have called the film "The Lottery winner" or "The Car lover".

Keeping his new car a secret from his wife Nina (Edwige), Mario (Enrico) gets an illegal car radio that used to be part of a Chicago taxi cab, buys a nice suit and is suddenly a big man about town. Bumping into blonde bimbo Daniela Poggi, she invites him to a cocktail party and introduces him as a famous medic to her rich husband, Rossano Brazzi (the brains behind the Italian Job). Next morning Enrico wakes up next to Daniela. This apparent one night stand has no impact on the story or any of the characters at all after wards and only seems to be there because Poggi would do what Fenech wouldn't. Now feeling extremely self confident, Mario pretends to be a cop (because he likes to listen to police radio in his new car), which only gets him his precious automobile stolen from under his very nose and eventually, himself arrested.

The last, and most tiresome act sees Enrico being interrogated by his usual foil Enzo Robutti, thrown into jail (mainly because of his illegal car radio - aha - a plot point that actually pays off) and assigned a useless lawyer played by Enzo Cannavale. Edwige gets to be interviewed on television as the wife of a suspected terrorist, which might have been another potential pay-off had it not been for the fact that everybody in the entire film gets a similar shot at their 15 minutes of fame. Finally, there's a happy end (even though Enrico's character does more bad than good to get there) which sees the return of his great love: the car, but strangely enough, not a whiff of a chase scene. Rather a disappointment on all counts.

6 out of 10, one for each writer