''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, Gail Lawrence and Geraldine Fitzgerald. It is about a man who finds a baby chimpanzee in a giant '' King Kong'' prop and decides to raise it like a son. It was filmed in English 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. He works alongside his friend the sculptor Luigi Nocello. Nocello maintains the varied and often macabre wax displays, such as the Crucifixion of Jesus and the Assassination of Julius Caesar, 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, amidst a construction site of Battery Park City, Lafayette meets Luigi and a band of eccentrics. The group finds an abandoned baby chimpanzee in the palm of a giant King Kong 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. 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 * James Coco as Andreas Flaxman * Geraldine Fitzgerald as Mrs. Toland *

Abigail Clayton Abigail Clayton is an American retired pornographic actress active during the Golden Age of Porn. She was inducted into the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2008. Film career Clayton started her career in 1976 during the porn chic era when adult movies ...

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 as Miko * Francesca De Sapio * Enrico Blasi

Reception and release

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes 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 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 The Grand Prix is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or, and it replaced the Special Jury Priz ...

, 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''.

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