Word: sordi
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Their leaders are ingratiating bean brains. Major Richardson (David Niven) is a swaggerstick-thin Colonel Blimp. Captain Blasi (Italy's Alberto Sordi) is a soulful doleful duce. Each spends most of his time taking miscalculated risks and falling into the other's hands. Niven falls first, when his plane crashes...
Sandhurst-trained David Niven never lets down the light comedy side of officership. As Blasi, Sordi lacks comic bite, and tends to be more laughed at than with. Director de Laurentiis seems to abide by some central-casting Geneva Convention that national stereotypes are immutable. The English are natty, tightlipped, unflappable. The Italians are sloppy, openhearted, fidgety. The film is unflaggingly amiable, and a few of the older moviegoers may be nagged by the recollection that the real thing was less jolly...
Except for poor Wanda who is an appealingly devoted fan as played by Brunella Boro, none of the people really are people. They are examples. The White Sheik himself (Alberto Sordi) combines aspects of Mario Lanza, Liberace, and Fernando Lamas in a gloriously dripping mixture. Wanda's husband is played, sometimes ferociously, sometimes stoically, by Leopoldo Triesti. Hordes of Moorish monsters also appear to attack the White Sheik along with relatives to attack Wanda's husband; and these creatures add motion to the commotion...