Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti [Fiasco in Milan] *** (1959, Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori, Claudia Cardinale) – Classic Movie Review 12,597

The eager-to-please 1959 Italian comedy crime film Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti [Fiasco in Milan] stars Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori and Claudia Cardinale. This time a Milan thief engages the usual gang of robbers to steal a suitcase full of money.

The eager-to-please 1959 Italian comedy crime film Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti (also known as Fiasco in Milan or Hold-up à la milanaise) is directed by Nanni Loy, and stars Vittorio Gassman, Renato Salvatori and Claudia Cardinale. The film is the sequel to the 1958 gem  I soliti ignoti but this time entirely a comedy and not a heist caper thriller. It is engaging in many ways, but it tips over into farce and slapstick too often, which is a shame because there is a much better film trying to get out of here.

In the story, the Milanese gangster Virgilio ‘Il Milanese’ (Riccardo Garrone) contacts Peppe (Vittorio Gassman) having identified him and his accomplices as the men who carried out the bungled heist on the Madonna Street pawn shop in I soliti ignoti. The gangster wants Peppe to reunite the same men for a daring robbery in Milan, where the offices of football betting pool Totocalcio transfer the 80 million lire weekly take on Sunday afternoon in an unguarded car with just an accountant, the suitcase of cash and a driver. The gang must travel north on the train from Rome among the A S Roma supporters going to Milan for a football match, commit the robbery and then flee to Bologna in a souped-up car to rejoin the returning sports fans.

There is nothing wrong with the heist plot then, which is entirely involving, only the tone of the film. It is amusing, quirk and flavourful, but there is too much daft comedy this time, with strained efforts to be crowd-pleasing for a Fifties Italian audience, and too little crime. Even the ending is bewilderingly silly, with untruthful comedy. So, entertaining though it is, nevertheless it is down from the very high level of the first film. The cast keeps it going though, along with the atmospheric location filming and some good scenes.

There is way too much bumbling and not nearly enough thievery, but it stays on the rails and somehow keeps on this side of credible, with its appealing characters, likeable, entertaining actors, and the script’s social comments on postwar Italian austerity ways of life. It is a sharp and clear, quite poignant snapshot of late Fifties Italy. It helps that it is very well filmed, and imaginatively shot in lovely black and white on striking, timely locations, and that there is a tremendous jazz score, with Chet Baker solos.

It is the sequel to Mario Monicelli’s I soliti ignoti (1958) and it’s good to have almost all the actors back (apart from Totó and Marcello Mastroianni), though disappointingly the lovely young Claudia Cardinale has very little to do as the illiterate young Sicilian woman, Carmela Nicosia. What a waste!

Carlo Pisacane (above right) with Tiberio Murgia in Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti (1959).

Main stars Vittorio Gassman as Giuseppe ‘Peppe er Pantera’ Baiocchi, Renato Salvatori as Mario Angeletti and Nino Manfredi as Ugo ‘Piede Amaro’ Nardi have a lot to do, and do it capably, even quite winningly. Carlo Pisacane is very amusing as the elderly and gluttonous small-time crook Capannelle, in many ways stealing the film. Vicky Ludovici is most appealing as the showgirl Floriana, though her character is treated very badly by the script.

Writers: Agenore Incrocci (story and screenplay), Furio Scarpelli (story and screenplay) and Nanni Loy (dialogue).

It is followed by Big Deal After 20 Years (1985).

It opened in Rome in December 1959.

Audace Colpo dei Soliti Ignoti translates as ‘Daring Strike by the Usual Unknown Persons’.

The cast are Vittorio Gassman as Peppe, Renato Salvatori as Mario Angeletti, Claudia Cardinale as Carmela Nicosia, Nino Manfredi as Ugo ‘Piede Amaro’ Nardi, Vicky Ludovici [Vicky Ludovisi] as Floriana, Riccardo Garrone as Virgilio ‘Il Milanese’, Tiberio Murgia as Michele ‘Ferribotte’ Nicosia, Carlo Pisacane as Capannelle, Gianni Bonagura as the Totocalcio accountant, and Mario Feliciani as the Police Inspector.

Nanni Loy appears as The Man Crossing Street during the opening credits.

Renato Salvatori met French actress Annie Girardot on the set of the film Rocco and His Brothers (1960) and married her on 6 January 1962.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,597

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