Fizzarotti’s final musicarello, a classic that foreshadows the sexy female soldiers who will soon appear on screen
The final musicarello from Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, the director who more than anyone else
made the genre unmistakable and triumphant, also represents the ending of an age. He returns to a military setting, which often served him so well in dishing up delightful romantic comedies packed with Italian pop songs (his many films with Gianni Morandi, for example). Venga a fare il soldato da noi is one last skilfully mixed and shaken cocktail of romance, laughter and song. Singer Gianni Nazzaro plays the lead role, surrounded by a fantastic cast of comic actors: Nino Taranto, Lino Banfi, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. However, it is also worth mentioning the film’s unwitting ability to foreshadow a future trend: the presence of a clandestine female in an all-male army barracks (all she needs is a fake moustache and nobody suspects a thing) allows a certain amount of sexual shenanigans that the musicarello genre usually preferred to avoid. The soldier in question is Dutchgirl Katia Christine, who was a bit hit at the time in Italy in TV advertising sketches. We still haven’t arrived at an Edwige Fenech-style soldier, but something new and saucy is in the air.
By mistake Nicoletta’s name gets registered as Nicola (a boy’s name in Italy), and she finds herself being enrolled in the army. Thanks to a fake moustache nobody notices, and she takes advantage of the situation to keep an eye on her boyfriend, whose behaviour is not always beyond reproach. It is not the only strange thing going on in a platoon that gets up to all kinds of mischief.
Fizzarotti’s final musicarello, a classic that foreshadows the sexy female soldiers who will soon appear on screen
The final musicarello from Ettore Maria Fizzarotti, the director who more than anyone else
made the genre unmistakable and triumphant, also represents the ending of an age. He returns to a military setting, which often served him so well in dishing up delightful romantic comedies packed with Italian pop songs (his many films with Gianni Morandi, for example). Venga a fare il soldato da noi is one last skilfully mixed and shaken cocktail of romance, laughter and song. Singer Gianni Nazzaro plays the lead role, surrounded by a fantastic cast of comic actors: Nino Taranto, Lino Banfi, Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. However, it is also worth mentioning the film’s unwitting ability to foreshadow a future trend: the presence of a clandestine female in an all-male army barracks (all she needs is a fake moustache and nobody suspects a thing) allows a certain amount of sexual shenanigans that the musicarello genre usually preferred to avoid. The soldier in question is Dutchgirl Katia Christine, who was a bit hit at the time in Italy in TV advertising sketches. We still haven’t arrived at an Edwige Fenech-style soldier, but something new and saucy is in the air.
By mistake Nicoletta’s name gets registered as Nicola (a boy’s name in Italy), and she finds herself being enrolled in the army. Thanks to a fake moustache nobody notices, and she takes advantage of the situation to keep an eye on her boyfriend, whose behaviour is not always beyond reproach. It is not the only strange thing going on in a platoon that gets up to all kinds of mischief.
