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Avanti!
Billy Wilder is deservedly celebrated for corrosive dramas and scintillating comedies such as Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. This, however, is perhaps his most neglected masterpiece. It's a sublime romantic comedy which spins on one of Wilder's favourite themes: the confrontation between the brashness of America, where he worked, and the sophistication of Europe, where he was born. Jack Lemmon's harassed business executive flies from Baltimore to Italy to collect his father's corpse. Juliet Mills arrives from England to pick up her mother's body, and before you can say "espresso", the odd couple are re-enacting their parents' affair, first for the hotel staff, then for real. To watch Lemmon, in his best screen performance, shed his clothes and his finger-snapping rudeness, slowly unwind and renew himself spiritually and physically is both moving and wonderfully witty. The picture is long (justifiably), impeccably plotted and brimming with marvellous characters, from Clive Revill's hotel manager to Edward Andrews as a CIA agent whose last-minute appearance serves to show the distance Lemmon has travelled. This is a desert island movie if ever there was one.
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