Ghosts – Italian Style (1967)

Directed by Renato Castellani. Starring Vitorrio Gassman, Sophia Loren, Mario Adorf, Aldo Giuffrè, Margaret Lee, Francesco Tensi, Francis de Wolff, Augusta Merola. [G]

Gassman and Loren’s marriage is on the rocks, but maybe they can recapture the old magic by staying in an old mansion haunted by a ghost…or so Gassman assumes it’s a ghost, when it’s actually Loren’s whiny, panting lover (Adorf) sneaking around the grounds. A phony ghost story repurposed as a bedroom farce, which goes ahead and throws in a real ghost at the end for a laugh, one who fancies Loren’s body (he ain’t that dead…). If it sounds like I just divulged the punchline, it would be just about the only one that could be spoiled in this labored laffer, directed with delayed timing and too little style, and overtaken by Adorf’s hammy performance. Based on a play (Questi Fantasmi); playwright Eduardo De Filippo earned a co-scripting credit. Marcello Mastrantonio makes an unbilled cameo.

39/100