''Sexycop'' ( it, La Madama) 1976 Italian

crime comedy film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

directed by

Duccio Tessari Duccio Tessari (11 October 1926 – 6 September 1994) was an Italian director, screenwriter and actor, considered one of the fathers of Spaghetti Westerns. Born in Genoa, Tessari started in the fifties as documentarist and as screenwriter of pe ...

. It is based on the novel with the same name written by Massimo Felisatti and Fabio Pittorru.

Plot

Cast

Christian De Sica Christian De Sica (; born 5 January 1951) is an Italian actor and film director. Life De Sica was born in Rome the second son of Italian director Vittorio De Sica and Spanish actress María Mercader. His first cousin once removed was Ramón ...

as Vito Militiello *

Carole André Carole André-Smith (born 11 March 1953) is a French-Italian former actress. Her best known role was Kabir Bedi's love interest Lady Marianna, nicknamed "", in the successful RAI series ''Sandokan'' (1976). Since retiring from acting, she has b ...

as "La Madama" *

Tom Skerritt Thomas Roy Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962. He is known for his film roles in ''M*A*S*H'', ''Alien'', '' The Dead Zone'', '' Top Gun'', '' A ...

as Jack * Ines Pellegrini as Irma *

Oreste Lionello Oreste Lionello (18 April 1927 – 19 February 2009) was an Italian actor and voice actor. Biography Lionello was born in Rhodes (which was then a possession of Italy), to Calabrian parents, and grew up in Reggio Calabria. He began his career a ...

as Inspector Solmi *

Ettore Manni Ettore Manni (6 May 1927 – 27 July 1979) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in more than 100 films between 1952 and 1979. Life and career Born in Rome, Manni debuted as an actor in 1952, when in spite of his acting inexperience he wa ...

as Sante Tonnaro *

Gigi Ballista Gigi Ballista (1 December 1918 – 2 August 1980) was an Italian film and television actor. He appeared in 60 films between 1961 and 1980. Life and career Born in Florence, Ballista graduated in Law, then he started working as a PR consulta ...

as The Venetian * Francesco De Rosa as Squillace

Production

''Sexycop'' was based on the novel ''La Madama'' written by

Massimo Felisatti Massimo Felisatti (12 May 1932 – 7 September 2016) was an Italian novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and director. Biography Born in Ferrara, Felisatti graduated in Modern Letters, and then he started collaborating with some local newspapers, ...

and

Fabio Pittorru Fabio Pittorru (24 August 1928 – 4 September 1995) was an Italian novelist, essayist, screenwriter, journalist and film director. Biography Born in Ferrara, after the World War II Pittorru was very active in the local cultural scene, workin ...

. The term ''Madama'' itself, was a Rome-based slang for Italy's mobile police, similar to the English slang "the fuzz". The book was the third in a series of novels and was adapted to film by director

who turned the film into more of a comedy oriented film.

Release

''Sexycop'' was distributed theatrically in Italy by

Titanus Titanus is an Italian film production company, founded in 1904 by Gustavo Lombardo (1885–1951). The company's headquarters are located at 28 Via Sommacampagna, Rome and its studios on the Via Tiburtina, 13 km from the centre of Rome. Lom ...

on 16 January 1976. It grossed a total of 173,627,420

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

domestically. The film has also been released as ''La Madama l'agente Minchiello e il caso Patacchioni''. Italian film historian Roberto Curti described the Italian box office as "disappointing".

Reception

Curti stated that contemporary critics "ravaged the film". '' Corriere della Seras Renato Palazzo found the film to be closer to "the childish comic-adventure series starring

Bud Spencer Carlo Pedersoli (31 October 1929 – 27 June 2016), known professionally as Bud Spencer, was an Italian actor, professional swimmer and water polo player. He was known for action-comedy and Spaghetti Western roles with his long-time film partn ...

and

Terence Hill Terence Hill (born Mario Girotti; 29 March 1939) is an Italian actor, film director, screenwriter and producer. He began his career as a child actor and gained international fame for starring roles in action and comedy films, many with longtim ...

" noting that "this formula has been frayed for a long time." Orio Caldiron of La Rivista del cinematografo stated that although Tessari has never been a master filmmaker, wondered how far he could have lost his way with the film.

References

Bibliography

External links

* 1976 films Italian crime comedy films 1970s crime comedy films 1970s Italian-language films Films directed by Duccio Tessari Films scored by Manuel De Sica Titanus films 1976 comedy films 1970s Italian films {{comedy-crime-film-stub