Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Massimo Troisi | ... | Gaetano | |
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Fiorenza Marchegiani | ... | Marta |
Marco Messeri | ... | The Madman | |
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Lello Arena | ... | Raffaele 'Rafè' Sodano, aka Lello |
Laura Nucci | ... | Ida, Robertino's mother | |
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Deddi Savagnone | ... | Gaetano's Mother |
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Vincent Gentile | ... | Frankie |
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Luciano Crovato | ... | Alfredo |
Renato Scarpa | ... | Robertino | |
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Marina Pagano | ... | Gaetano's Aunt |
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Lino Troisi | ... | Ugo, Gaetano's father |
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Marta Bifano | ... | The Nun in hospital |
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Giuseppe Borrelli | ||
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Cloris Brosca | ... | Rosaria - Gaetano's sister |
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Ettore Carloni | ... | Don Ciro (as Ettore Carlone) |
Gaetano, a young Neapolitan, decides to leave home, work and friends, to look for other moments of life and meet other people. He goes to Florence, to his aunt's home. In a clinic, where he goes by chance, he meets Martha and falls in love with her. After a series of funny situations (an old friend from the relentless chatter coming from Naples and the mature aunt and her elderly lover, a young American priest who wants to involve him in his visits to evangelical force, the encounter with Riccardino, a young man frustrated by an oppressive mother and the father waiting for the miracle of re-growth of an amputated hand, etc.) Gaetano decides to stay in Florence and to act as father to Martha's incoming son, even if the girl does not want to disclose the exact name of the father . Written by Ruben Oliveira
This film is about a Neapolitan who moves to Florence. "Emigrant?" everyone asks him. "No, tourist. Everywhere we Neapolitans go, people ask if we are emigrants. Neapolitans travel also." The man in this lunatic comedy, and also its director, is Massimo Troisi who seems like a combination of Chico Marx, Totò, and Woody Allen on Dexedrine. He is as apt a comedian as a performer and his inspired nonsense can send an attuned audience (I suspect his comedy doesn't travel well) into convulsions of laughter. Here is a man who doesn't want to start a new life from zero or from scratch but from three. After all each of us has had two experiences in life that weren't that bad! Massimo Troisi is known to American audiences as the hero of "Il Postino". The actor died soon after completing work on that film.