Madly in Love

Barnaba, a bus driver in Rome, is struck by a woman he sees in the street. She is Cristina, heir to a small European principality, and she is engaged. He will not let go: he gets into the palace, disrupts the official ceremonies and dismantles the princess's world from inside. The film is not interested in romance. It is interested in turning class difference into comedy: across the film every rule of protocol is made absurd by the presence of a workman, and the princess enjoys it. The joke always comes from the same place, and repetition is the engine. The form is Italian popular comedy: broad gesture, noisy scenes, playing pitched for dubbing, and Celentano's own physical routines. Castellano and Pipolo directed. The pair made film after film with Celentano, and this became one of the most watched of the run, among the highest earning Italian productions of its period. Adriano Celentano plays Barnaba and Ornella Muti plays Cristina. Celentano and Muti were the best-known pairing in Italian comedy of the era, and this film repeats it. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian popular comedy and Celentano. Who it is not for: anyone watching by today's standards. The hero's persistence is celebrated as persistence and the woman's refusals are never taken seriously.