My Friends is a 1975 Italiancomedy-drama film directed by Mario Monicelli. The film project belonged to Pietro Germi, who had no chance to make it happen because of his untimely death. The opening credits of the film, in fact, paid tribute to the author with the words "a film by Pietro Germi" which is followed only later by "directed by Mario Monicelli". The film, which made it to number one on the Italian box-office in front of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, was followed by two sequels, Amici miei Atto II, Amici miei Atto III, directed by Nanni Loy.
Plot
Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitterpoint of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life. Count Mascetti is an impoverished noble who has no means to support his family, but does not renounce high living pleasures anyway, and has an underage mistress, Titti. Perozzi is an easy-living journalist harassed by the unceasing disapproval of his wife and his son. Melandri is an architect employed by City Hall, whose main goal is to find the ideal woman. Necchi is the owner of a café and pool hall where the friends usually plan their zingarate. During the movie, they are joined by a renowned, military-like surgeon, professor Alfeo Sassaroli, in whose clinic they recover after being hospitalized, injured after a mismanaged zingarata. Melandri falls in love with Sassaroli's wife, exclaiming "I've seen the Madonna!", only to discover she has psychological problems. The plot is mostly composed of elaborate practical jokes organized by the friends, including the creation of a fake mafia mob in whose "criminal acts" they involve a pensioner, Righi, who used to snatch croissants from the cake tray in Necchi's café, and Mascetti's attempts to save his marriage despite his relationship with Titti. Mascetti widely uses no meaning words that Italian people misunderstand in talking such as "supercazzola", "autoscapellamento", "sbiligudi" and many other ones. The film ends with Perozzi's death, which still does not deprive the friends of their desecrating hijinks, not even in face of their own mortality; Perozzi himself makes a last joke to the priest. When Perozzi's wife, criticized by Melandri for her lack of tears, comments: "One can weep if somebody dies. But here nobody has died", Mascetti replies: "Well, in reality he had never been so much, but I liked him". During the funeral procession they "pay homage" to their dead friend by telling the wide-eyed Righi that Perozzi was killed for being a traitor to their mafia. Melandri starts sobbing, but not out of sadness, but out of laughter, because Righi believed the hoax. Even the friends begin to laugh, almost unable to control themselves. Righi, believing that they are heartbroken over the loss, begins to be moved for real.
The project was begun by Pietro Germi, who could not finish it due to his death. Monicelli, who replaced him, moved the set from Bologna to Florence, as the filmmaker was raised in Tuscany.
One of the most popular scenes is that in which the four friends, in order to raise Melandri's mood after his falling out with Sassaroli's ex-wife, organize a zingarataconsisting of slapping people's faces stretching out from the windows of a leaving train. One of the victims is Perozzi's son.
The film was shot in Florence and its center was a real bar in Piazza Demidoff, along the River Arno, which was named "Bar Amici Miei" and featured posters of the film. In the 1990sthe bar changed its name and was modernized becoming an American bar and losing all connections to the film.
