''Bye Bye Monkey'' ( it, Ciao maschio, french: Rêve de singe) is a 1978 Italian-French

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film, directed by

Marco Ferreri Marco Ferreri (11 May 1928 – 9 May 1997) was an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor, who began his career in the 1950s directing three films in Spain, followed by 24 Italian films before his death in 1997. He is considered one of t ...

and starring

Gérard Depardieu Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu, CQ (, , ; born 27 December 1948) is a French actor, filmmaker, businessman and vineyard owner since 1989 who is one of the most prolific thespians in film history having completed over 250 films since 1967 alm ...

Marcello Mastroianni Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni (28 September 1924 – 19 December 1996) was an Italian film actor, regarded as one of his country's most iconic male performers of the 20th century. He played leading roles for many of Italy's top di ...

James Coco James Emil Coco (March 21, 1930 – February 25, 1987) was an American stage and screen actor. He was the recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a Drama Desk Award and three Obie Awards, as well as nominations for a Tony Award, an Academy Awards, ...

, Gail Lawrence and

Geraldine Fitzgerald Geraldine Mary Fitzgerald (November 24, 1913 – July 17, 2005) was an Irish actress and a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame. In 2020, she was listed at number 30 on ''The Irish Times'' list of Ireland's greatest film actors. Early li ...

. It is about a man who finds a baby chimpanzee in a giant ''

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

'' prop and decides to raise it like a son. It was filmed in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and shot in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. As this was a French-Italian co-production, French and Italian dubbed versions were made for their respective countries' theatrical releases.

Plot

The film is set in a darkly surreal and

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n version of New York City, that is mostly devoid of humans and populated only by rats and a few eccentrics. Lafayette is a young French electrician, living on his own in a basement. He works for Andreas Flaxman, the cynical owner of a waxwork museum. The museum is dedicated to recreating scenes from the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediterr ...

. He works alongside his friend the sculptor Luigi Nocello. Nocello maintains the varied and often macabre wax displays, such as the

Crucifixion of Jesus The crucifixion and death of Jesus occurred in 1st-century Judea, most likely in AD 30 or AD 33. It is described in the four canonical gospels, referred to in the New Testament epistles, attested to by other ancient sources, and consid ...

and the

Assassination of Julius Caesar Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, was assassinated by a group of senators on the Ides of March (15 March) of 44 BC during a meeting of the Senate at the Curia of Pompey of the Theatre of Pompey in Rome where the senators stabbed Caesar 23 ti ...

, which fill the museum. Lafayette also works as a lighting technician for a feminist theatre group. After rehearsal one day, the women in the group discuss their next project and decide to improvise a piece about rape for their next production, contending that women are just as capable of violence as men are; in the middle of their discussion, they knock Lafayette unconscious with a bottle of Coca-Cola, pin him down, and the attractive Angelica volunteers to rape Lafayette. Beside the

Hudson River The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...

, amidst a construction site of

Battery Park City Battery Park City is a mainly residential planned community and neighborhood on the west side of the southern tip of the island of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by the Hudson River on the west, the Hudson River shoreline on the north ...

, Lafayette meets Luigi and a band of eccentrics. The group finds an abandoned baby chimpanzee in the palm of a giant

sculpture. Lafayette decides to adopt the chimpanzee. When he brings the chimp with him to the museum, Flaxman warns him that the chimp will rob him of his freedom, if he does not get rid of it. Flaxman is approached by the mysterious Paul Jefferson of the State Foundation for Psychological Research. He convinces the initially resistant Flaxman to transform the face of the sculpture

Julius Caesar Gaius Julius Caesar (; ; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC), was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating his political rival Pompey in a civil war, and ...

into the face of

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...

. Angelica, who has become enamored with Lafayette, moves into his sordid flat and shares in the care of the infant chimp. However, when Lafayette does not respond to the news that she is pregnant, she moves out. Alone again, he returns one day to find his baby ape eaten by rats. In total despair and needing human contact, he breaks into the waxwork museum but is met with hostility by the owner. The two fight and a fire, presumably caused by faulty wiring, consumes them both. Later, we see Angelica on the shore. She plays happily with her child.

Cast

as Gerard Lafayette *

as Luigi Nocello *

as Andreas Flaxman *

as Mrs. Toland * Abigail Clayton as Angelica (as Gail Lawrence) *

Stefania Casini Stefania Casini (born 4 September 1948) is an Italian actress, screenwriter, director, and producer. She starred alongside Robert De Niro and Gérard Depardieu in Bernardo Bertolucci's ''1900'' (1976) and received two David di Donatello Award ...

as Feminist Actress *

Mimsy Farmer Merle "Mimsy" Farmer (born February 28, 1945) is an American actress, artist and sculptor. She began her career appearing in several Hollywood studio films, such as ''Spencer's Mountain'' (1963) and ''Bus Riley's Back in Town'' (1965), followed b ...

as Feminist Actress *

Avon Long Avon Long (June 18, 1910 – February 15, 1984) was an American Broadway actor and singer. Biography Long was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He attended Frederick Douglass High School, where he was especially influenced by the Latin teacher and ...

as Miko *

Francesca De Sapio Francesca De Sapio (16 August 1945) is an Italian actress and acting coach, best-known as the young Carmela Corleone in ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974). The daughter of an architect, she was born in Rome. After her father's work took him to th ...

Enrico Blasi Enrico Blasi (born February 16, 1972) is an American hockey coach, former player and athletics administrator who currently serves as head coach at the University of St. Thomas. Blasi was previously the head coach for the Miami RedHawks men's ice ...

Reception and release

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of 60% based on 5 critics, with an average rating of 6.20/10. Jesús Fernández Santos of ''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

'' said that "The film's true interest resides, above all, in the effective scenes of dark humor and in the general idea of the script, which is surely Marco Ferreri's most ambitious one to date". On 14 July 2009, the film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

by Koch Lorber Films, a division of

Entertainment One Entertainment One Ltd., trading as eOne, is an American-owned Canadian multinational entertainment company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the company is primarily involved in the acquisition, distribution, and production of films and television se ...

Awards

The film was presented at the official competition of the

1978 Cannes Film Festival The 31st Cannes Film Festival was held from 16 to 30 May 1978. The Palme d'Or went to the L'albero degli zoccoli by Ermanno Olmi. This festival saw the introduction of a new non-competitive section, 'Un Certain Regard', which replaces 'Les Yeux ...

and received the Grand Prize of the Jury, in tie with

Jerzy Skolimowski Jerzy Skolimowski (, born 5 May 1938) is a Polish film director, screenwriter, dramatist and actor. A graduate of the prestigious National Film School in Łódź, Skolimowski has directed more than twenty films since his 1960 début ''Oko wykol' ...

's ''

The Shout ''The Shout'' is a 1978 British horror film directed by Jerzy Skolimowski. It was based on a short story by Robert Graves and adapted for the screen by Skolimowski and Michael Austin. The film was the first to be produced by Jeremy Thomas under ...

''.

References

External links

* * {{KingKong 1978 films 1978 comedy-drama films 1970s monster movies French comedy-drama films Italian comedy-drama films Films about apes Films about mice and rats Films directed by Marco Ferreri Films about orphans Films set in museums Films set in New York City Films shot in New York (state) Films with screenplays by Gérard Brach Films scored by Philippe Sarde 1970s dystopian films English-language French films English-language Italian films Films with screenplays by Rafael Azcona Cannes Grand Prix winners 1970s English-language films 1970s Italian films 1970s French films