Italian comedy is at its best when it is as sharp as a scalpel. A cavallo della tigre is a superb example of this. It is well-paced, alternating between hilarious gags and more dramatic scenes, with the awareness that the underprivileged are always destined to suffer the hard knocks in life. The back and forth between laughter and bitterness is perfectly mastered by Nino Manfredi, giving one of his best performances. Perhaps it is due to his dose of untempered bitterness that the film met with little success when first released. In the words of screenwriter Age, “it was a bit ahead of its time”. However, it has stood the test of time, as proven by the great 2002 remake directed by Carlo Mazzacurati, with Fabrizio Bentivoglio giving a contemporary version of Manfredi’s comic tribulations.
Giacinto, a man down on his luck, ends up in prison for an inept attempt at fraud and gets involved with an assorted group of prisoners who are planning to escape. Their escape is successful, but their attempts to get out of the country are fraught with obstacles. Giacinto goes to his wife to ask for some money to get to Egypt, only to find that she has a new lover. Worse still, she is penniless…
Italian comedy is at its best when it is as sharp as a scalpel. A cavallo della tigre is a superb example of this. It is well-paced, alternating between hilarious gags and more dramatic scenes, with the awareness that the underprivileged are always destined to suffer the hard knocks in life. The back and forth between laughter and bitterness is perfectly mastered by Nino Manfredi, giving one of his best performances. Perhaps it is due to his dose of untempered bitterness that the film met with little success when first released. In the words of screenwriter Age, “it was a bit ahead of its time”. However, it has stood the test of time, as proven by the great 2002 remake directed by Carlo Mazzacurati, with Fabrizio Bentivoglio giving a contemporary version of Manfredi’s comic tribulations.
Giacinto, a man down on his luck, ends up in prison for an inept attempt at fraud and gets involved with an assorted group of prisoners who are planning to escape. Their escape is successful, but their attempts to get out of the country are fraught with obstacles. Giacinto goes to his wife to ask for some money to get to Egypt, only to find that she has a new lover. Worse still, she is penniless…
