Big Deal on Madonna Street

Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) is the film that launched the commedia all'italiana, the bittersweet comic tradition that would dominate Italian cinema for two decades. A direct parody of Jules Dassin's solemn heist classic Rififi, it earned an Academy Award nomination and remains one of the most beloved comedies ever made in Italy.

A glorious ensemble — Vittorio Gassman, Marcello Mastroianni, the veteran Totò as a deadpan safe-cracking “consultant” — plays a band of Roman no-hopers plotting to rob a pawnshop through a shared wall. Monicelli mines the gap between their grand criminal ambitions and their hapless reality, but laces the farce with real tenderness for these hungry, unemployed men, so that the laughter never quite loses its undertow of hardship.

Its influence has been enormous, spawning sequels, an American remake (Crackers) and a clear line of descent to caper comedies like Ocean's Eleven and beyond. By treating poverty and friendship with as much care as it lavishes on the gags, the film set the template for a uniquely Italian way of being funny and sad at once — and it has lost none of its warmth or its perfectly timed slapstick. Its precise comic timing and its tenderness toward its hapless schemers keep it fresh, and it routinely tops lists of the greatest Italian comedies.