Word: ugo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...pairing is as before. Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) is still the wise, patient husband; Albin (Michel Serrault), the transvestite wife, remains prone to hysterics and to giddy romanticism. The two are involved in a rather strained spy plot after Albin comes into possession of a microfilm wanted by both the Súreté and what one must assume are Communist spies. It is only when Albin and Renato are forced to flee France and take refuge in Italy, at the home of the latter's mother, that the picture comes alive. For these are the backward boondocks, where women...
This climax neatly parodies one of the sillier conventions of romantic thrillers, but the picture is rarely that delicately tuned. Ugo Tognazzi remains a marvel of sympathetic understatement as the, er, straight man, but Michel Serrault's performance has a forced, even panicky quality here, perhaps because his role is not as well written as it was the first time, lacking as it does both sympathy and well-made gags. Director Molinaro handles most of the action scenes perfunctorily, never realizing their full value either as suspense or as comedy. Since no one has bothered to think up anything...