Franco Franchi

An oral history of the 1986 film adaptation of "The Name of the Rose", gathering together the memories of several members of the surviving cast/crew.

No synopsis available yet.

Five stories center on a werewolf, a feudal landlord, peasants, a ghost, and a mother and her sons.

Mastro Geppetto is a poor carpenter with no wife and no children. The man is very lonely, and after trading a piece of wood with his colleague Mastro Ciliegia, decides to build himself a puppet to keep him company.

A man and his mistress have just taken off for a weekend romp when they're kidnapped by a trio of bank robbers. They wind up becoming media "stars" as police and reporters follow them. They all wind up at the beat-up shack of a cranky old codger, with the police surrounding them and the robbers threatening to kill everybody.

A girl is drafted due to a misunderstanding and this gives her the occasion to check on her boy-friend, whom she believes to be a womanizer.

To follow the beautiful Frida, Franco and Ciccio leave for Africa, where the adventurer Berrendero enlists them in a band of mercenaries. Franchi and Ingrassia in a daring parody of "Tarzan".

The manager of a football team wants to hire a coach. Luckily the team begin to win but on the eve of an important match the opposing team has their best scorer kidnapped. Will they win the match all the same?

During a monologue on the theme of adultery, a man reviews a series of famous and anonymous cases of conjugal betrayals ...

No synopsis available yet.

No synopsis available yet.

A funk is believed to be a tough guy because of a magic bowler hat which gives him courage and strength.

A penniless Prince and a petty thief become associates in a con game and when they end up in prison, the Prince, who is a compulsive gambler, loses all his money to the other and becomes his servant.

The Sicilian Franco is a sort of imitation of Bruce Lee that Don Vito, a Chinese expelled from his country because he smuggled rice from Palermo to Beijing, tries to train in the art of kung-fu with disastrous results.

Franco and Ciccio are two cousins ​​who, in the old West, have opened a service station, where they carry out the washing and drying of the horses and a bar service for the passing riders. One day a stranger saves them from an attempted robbery against them: the girl introduces herself as Calamity Jane, as well as Franco and Ciccio's aunt.

A satire of army life in which a tough army sergeant who loves opera clashes with his soldiers who love rock music and have formed a band.

A prince who has become poor accepts a marriage to the daughter of an American tycoon. The girl is only interested in his title and plans a divorce, but after a while she also grows fond of him.

Margherita nicknamed Fornarina is Raphael's mistress. Beatrice, a noblewoman who is also in love with the famous painter tries to get her out of the way, by having her wrongly accused of the murder of a loan shark, whom she has in reality killed herself. Fornarina is sentenced to death. Will Raphael manage to prove her innocent?

Italy's best loved comedy duo play rival priests in the neighboring towns of Roccapizzone and San Antonio. Did Franco crash his bike through Ciccio's new stained glass window on purpose or was he just in town for their mutual confession? Their main beef with each other concerns their opposing football teams and this feud takes up a great deal of the picture.

Two Sicilian shopowners who live in Rome pick up some beatnik hitchhikers and the group gate-crashes their seaside villa. In the meantime the two men's wives smell something fishy going on and go to the villa themselves. To make things worse the place is also invaded by three prison fugitives who terrorize the lot.

A woman feeds her husband with scraps and gives the best food to her lover, whom she hides in the attic. The husband abandons her and goes and lives with a young girl who drags him into a sadomasochistic relationship.

Franco and Ciccio are the directors of a driving school. They suffer the theft of the only car they have, and their new car is prone to going completely out of his control.

The army challenges the navy in a singing contest.

An anthology of brief comic sketches based on manias, mainly sexual, featuring several figures of Italian society.

During the 3rd century B.C. a horde of barbarians are hired by the Phoenian city of Carthage to fight against the Roman empire, but when the city's ruler is unable to fulfill the promised payment made to the mercenaries, they attack the African settlement, where Salammbô --the king's daughter and high priestess of goddess Tanit- tries to settle the matter when the Barbarian leader who has fallen for her steals the sacred veil of Carthage from the temple, without taking into account the evil schemes of a powerful member of the council of wise men.

A university student, Mario Buongiovanni, tries to do various jobs to pay for his studies: selling encyclopedias, singing in night clubs, being a tour guide. He then became a science teacher in a female college, where he met Lisa, the daughter of a Lombard industrialist, whom he fell in love with. But Lisa's father, unfortunately, already has in mind for her a marriage with a very rich suitor ...

Two jerks are enlisted in the Italian army during W.W.1 and by pure luck manage to help win an important battle.

Five GIs end up in a female college during their military maneuvers. They're very welcome by the girls and since one of them has also a beautiful voice they take part in a show organized by the college.

The film is composed of five episodes which depict Italians' love lives in the 1960s.

Four extraterrestrials, X-1, X-2, X-3 and X-4, arrive on Earth in the early sixties. Here they decide to take on human features to study the terrestrials incognito, but end up getting involved in the Roman "dolce vita".

Nefarious villain Goldginger is thwarted by bumbling secret agents Franco and Ciccio in his scheme to spark an international war by zombifying all government employees in this Italian spoof of the James Bond movies.

Mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot plots another twisted scheme to take over the world by killing off the major military leaders of every country; to that end, he creates in his secret lab a bevy of bodacious girl bombs; full-length, life-size robots that explode when embraced.

In the late 1800's, Sicilians Franco and Ciccio are serving 20 years of prison for stealing two mules, when they are helped to escape by an American who says he is a friend of their grandfathers, who were killed in Texas by a gang of bandits who wanted to take over their gold mine. The two friends travel to America to take posses of the gold mine, but they soon discover that they are not the only ones who want it.

The film consists of six short stories created by different directors, but all the stories share one thing: a warm irony to current events.

A clerk has had a picture taken during W.W.I with the future Italian dictator Mussolini and tries to exploit the situation pretending he is a dear friend of his. When he finds out who Mussolini really is he changes his mind and goes back to his bleak life.

Comic version of the famous man of la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes in which Don Quixote having read an adventure book too many sets out on his own adventures with his servant Sancho Panza.

Two dim-witted servants to an elderly, wealthy woman learn that they are to inherent the late woman's money, on the condition that they have to care for her rambuncous pet cat, which is not an easy thing to do so.

Two attendants in a public toilet in New York save the life of the Mafia boss Attanasia. Attanasia turns one of them into a successful boxer by setting up his matches and makes the other into his right hand. When a gang war starts the two are accused of the murders and are sentenced to death. When the execution day comes they refuse to leave their cell, even when they are proved innocent.

Aided by a chauffeur and a butler, a student of humble means pretends to be wealthy in order to attract the romantic interest of a rich girl.

KGB authorities abduct two criminals (Franco and Ciccio) who look exactly like missing spacemen and pretend they are the returning cosmonauts. They launch them in a rocket, so that they can land in public view, leading the populace to believe it was the original space craft that has returned. The two criminals look so much like the astronauts, they even fool the wives of the astronauts. Later however, the original spacecraft returns to Earth undamaged, and the plan goes all to pieces. In the end, Franco and Ciccio stay in Russia and the real astronauts relocate to Italy.

The firefighter student Francesco Perricone and his cousin the brigadier Barrese fall in love both of the beautiful brunette Caramella and the barracks of Rome are transferred to the village of Sicily where the girl lives.

In Sicily Franco and Ciccio are empowered by a local mafia man to guard for a wide range of salad. In reality however this is not simple salad vegetables but marijuana; the two bungling fools and friends do not realize it at first.

Famous singer Mimmo is a widower with a daughter, Letizia, to whom will give a mother. But the girl does not accept the current girlfriend of her father, growing fond of a young man, who wants as mother. The child creates many situations, such as coming to Ischia for treatment with mud, so that the two would meet and fall in love.

During the War of Succession, Franco and Ciccio are arrested for being accused of desertion from the Northern army. Rather than condemn them to death for his carelessness, they will be chosen for a special mission: to infiltrate as expert officers on a delicate espionage action.

An unemployed youth tries different jobs such as waiter, hairdresser, porter, salesman and when desperate, he goes to sleep in a flop-house, where he finds a job as a night watchman.

Two POWs learn of a treasure of gold hidden in a cemetery, and escape from their POW camp to look for it.

A series of sketches about people who have illicit affairs in a motel: among them a starlet and a pilot, two bit Casanovas, an industry manager and his secretary.

Three sailors are sent to an island by their commander to steal a boat, but they are sunk by an enemy ship. Saved from the shipwreck by a fishing boat, they have to get back to the island before their commander knows about their adventure.

Four episodes: a traveler is enticed by train per bet; a professional wants to be alone with a woman he likes; a lawyer becomes the lover of an adversary; a man discovers his wife's infidelity after ten years.

Salvatore and Rosalino are sentenced to death by the Mafia because they are accused of having seduced the daughters of a boss. As they are about to be shot they manage to escape with the two girls.

It's May 1943, and two Italian American soldiers, Joe and Frank, are searching the North African desert for a Nazi general called Von Kassler. Von Kassler's aide captures them, and arranges for them to escape with fake war plans. But, things don't go exactly as planned for either side.

A theater manager wants to stage a striptease act but his jealous wife puts a lot of obstacles on his way.

Five episodes which show Italian peoples pathological unfaithfulness in marriage.

In Naples, a voice from the skies announces one morning that the final judgment will be at 6 p.m. on that day. What follows is a series of vignettes depicting various people's reactions (or lack thereof) to the announcement.

Some puppets come to life in a theater with no windows. This time the puppets interpret William Shakespeare's Othello.

Franco consults a psychoanalyst due to a series of nightmares that constantly haunt him. The doctor prescribes a very special treatment for the patient: an intense love life. The man's wife, aware that she is part of the problem, decides to get a facial and to meet her husband in disguise.

Franco and Ciccio are two simple-minded Italian guys whom are mistaken by KGB spies by government agents from their government and other foreign governments.

In a little Sicilian village two hairdressers who are in love with the same girl manage to sabotage the bacteriological weapons the Nazis are preparing to use against the allied armies invasion.

A thief steals a suitcase but it contains a corpse and the thief is sentenced, but is released by the robbed doctor, who then subjects him to a facial plastic that makes him equal to a criminal.

Three episodes: In the first one a girl gets a journalist to help her recover a case with some precious designs in it; in the second a worker keen on helping his boss gets him into trouble instead and in the third one a shy boy who tries to impress women pretending he is tough ends up in hospital and falls in love with a nurse.