Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958)

The Story of a Perfect Crime ... Perfectly Hilarious!

Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.

Directed by: Mario Monicelli

Written by: Mario Monicelli, Suso Cecchi d'Amico, Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli

Music by: Piero Umiliani

Starring: Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Memmo Carotenuto, Rossana Rory, Carla Gravina, Claudia Cardinale, Marcello Mastroianni, Totò, Carlo Pisacane, Tiberio Murgia

Genre: Comedy, Crime

Released: 1958-07-26

Runtime: 106 minutes

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Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958): trivia & fun facts

Fun facts

• The Baltimore Sun said: "Director Mario Monicelli has endowed the film with such flashes of brilliance, and the cast...has enacted it with such tasteful understatement, that The Big Deal on Madonna Street must be listed as one of the funniest comedies of the last ten years."
• The film was shot in ten weeks on locations throughout Rome.
• Monicelli and cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo agreed on a photographic tone that was not comedic or brightly lit.
• According to Monicelli, the film adhered to the script, without improvisations.
• The film won Best Comedy at the 12th annual Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland.
• The main characters are portrayed by Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Carlo Pisacane, Tiberio Murgia, and Marcello Mastroianni.
• Claudia Cardinale makes a minor appearance as a chaste Sicilian girl constrained by her overprotective brother, portrayed by Murgia.
• The film's breezy jazz score by composer Piero Umiliani contributed to the development of the jazz soundtracks characteristic of European films in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Initially doubtful about the film's potential success, the producers strategically featured the comedian Totò on the original poster to generate audience attention.

Source: Wikipedia

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