June 17: Junesploitation’s topic of the day — as suggested by F This Movie— is Lucio Fulci! We’re excited to tackle a different genre every day, so check back and see what’s next.

I was reading through Letterboxd reviews the other day and I saw someone mention in a Fulci horror film that there was a humorous moment that they didn’t enjoy but that made sense because Fulci wasn’t known for making comedies.

Except that Fulci wrote Toto In the Moon and directed The Thieves, Letto a tre piazze, The Swindlers, I Maniaci, I due evasi di Sing Sing, Oh! Those Most Secret Agents, I due pericoli pubblici, How We Got into Trouble with the Army, 002 Operazione Luna, The Two Parachutists, How We Stole the Atomic Bomb, Operation St. Peter’s, The Eroticist, Dracula in the Provinces, My Sister-In-Law and The Long, the Short, the Cat.

Of the 57 movies Lucio Fulci directed that are listed on Letterboxd, 16 are comedies.

Anyways…

Like many of his comedy films (thirteen, in case you were guessing), this stars the team of Franco Franchi and Ciccio Ingrassia. As always, they play two Sicilian morons. Franco is completely deranged and uses his body and wild face to try and communicate in the loudest ways possible while Ciccio is the mustache-having bully who thinks he’s the more intelligent of the duo but is quite dumb.

In this movie, they have an older brother who is such an incredible thief that he is known as the Master. Paolo (Maro Pisu) wants his brothers to stop being criminals so that they don’t lead the police to him, so he sets them up with money, homes and girlfriends. Yet the two are so annoying that they can never keep these women and way too dumb to not want to be criminals like their brother.

Then Paolo meets two singers, Marilina (Lena von Martens, Operation Counterspy) and Rosalina (Mirella Maravidi, Requiescant, Terror-Creatures from the Grave) who are totally gorgeous and just as insipid as his siblings. He sets them up and leaves the country to hire experts to pull off his most daring and final heist, robbing the Bank of Italy.

The problem is that the ladies are gangsters and want the brothers to show just how good they are at being crooks and pull off their brother’s plan before he gets back.

A heist film that is a comedic version of Seven Golden Men, this even finds Franco and Ciccio dressing up as Diabolik to rob a safe. Plus, you get appearances by Solvi Stubing (Strip Nude for Your Killer), Kitty Swan (House of 1,000 Dolls), Maria Luisa Rispoli (Kriminal) and Adriana Ambesi (Fangs of the Living Dead).

Fulci wrote this with Roberto Gianviti (who wrote 134 movies including Don’t Torture a Duckling, Murder Rock, A Lizard In a Woman’s Skin and The Psychic) and Amedeo Sollazzo (who wrote the Italian Western with my favorite title, God Was in the West, Too, at One Time) from a story by Alfonso Brescia, who would use the name Al Bradley to make the music video-like Ator movie Iron Warrior, as well as the director of The Beast In Space and a whole galaxy full of Italian space operas.

I have to confess that I hated the movies of Franchi and Ingrassia when I first watched them but now find them charming. Maybe it was Argento discussing. how great they are in an interview I saw with him or it could be that I had to learn how to appreciate their basic humor. However I got here, I laughed several times while watching this and loved the space age sets and opening super thief action.

You can watch this on YouTube.