Operation San Pietro (1967)

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Just what I expected

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is yet another caper in the broadly comic style of the classic BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET (1958); actually, it's a semi-sequel to Dino Risi's THE TREASURE OF SAN GENNARO (1966) – via the presence in both of three incompetent thieves (the movie opens with them drilling through the floor of a building, believing it will lead into a museum but they find themselves inside a prison cell where the hero is currently confined!). Besides, it's one of numerous films in this vein which populated Edward G. Robinson's latter-day career; one further link to an earlier film is the fact that a previous "James Tont" adventure with the same star, Lando Buzzanca – which I watched recently – also involved a theft from the Vatican (the "St. Peter's" of the title).Incidentally, the "Operation" isn't the actual robbery itself – which, committed on the spur of the moment by Buzzanca in a totally casual manner (making off with Michelangelo's Pieta' statue on a fork-lifter in broad daylight!), is treated almost like child's play by director Fulci (well-known for his anti-clerical views) – but rather the ultra-organized ecclesiastical retrieval of the missing item (which, at one point, is even compared to the work of the Mafia)! In fact, we see various priests doing incredible stunts on motor-bikes(!) and such – which renders the second half of this patchy offering agreeably irreverent.Still, there are a few undeniable belly-laughs: when Buzzanca is forced to confess the crime to a priest by his girlfriend (they met during a failed "snatch & grab" attempt and with whom she fell immediately in love, since he happens to be a dead-ringer for her late husband!), we hear the man in the confessional tumbling down from fainting; another is when the trio of crooks are discovered lying about in their hide-out by Buzzanca and a Cardinal (Heinz Ruhmann) – the statue is no longer there, so they think that the men had been murdered by Robinson's gang: however, they had only passed out from over-eating (given them in exchange for the Pieta'!), not having had a decent meal in some time…and, in fact, one of them wakes up just in time to burp vigorously and loudly!!; also, during the lengthy climactic chase, a car with two priests inside is bumped into by another vehicle and torn in half!; also, among the parties to set out in pursuit of the thieves, are a group of laid-back and constantly chanting monks who use a derelict truck for the journey…so that, when they finally arrive on the scene, the operation has just wrapped! Robinson is given a nice role as a former big shot, but who cracked after being beaten up by his own cronies (he now flicks between a semi-senile nature and his former bloodthirsty self!); incidentally, it was rather strange to watch the Hollywood veteran in the presence of scantily-clad female assistant Uta Levka! Reportedly, Fulci was unimpressed by the actor's legacy and seems to have had had little patience with Robinson when the latter couldn't remember his lines (incidentally, the director didn't even have a kind word for his own film – calling it "a piece of crap")! Anyway, also notable in the cast is Jean-Claude Brialy, appearing atypically as a speech-impaired Sicilian(!) stud: though married, he uses his dubious skills as crooner to seduce (and, consequently, live off) every rich old lady that crosses his path!

Operazione San Pietro is an OK eurocomedy. It's not one of Lucio Fulci's best comedies (his other movies featuring Lando Buzzanca - The Eroticist, Young Dracula - are funnier), but it's still watchable and entertaining. It's not a real ripoff of Dino Risi's film, as an other reviewer mentioned (though I haven't seen Operazione San Gennaro), since it was made (written, produced etc.) by the same people, and - as far as I know - the story and the characters are very different too (Fulci's film is not a real "heist" or "caper" movie). The Italian title implies that it's a sequel, and it does feature similar situations, but 1. that's not stealing in my opinion 2. it is very common in case of movies like this. It seems to be true that Operazione San Pietro is actually a "semi-sequel" to Heinz Rühmann's Father Brown movies, at least the German title (Die Abenteuer des Kardinal Braun) suggests that.The acting is OK (Robinson is quite good in a parody of his earlier roles), the characters are funny, the direction is stylish (though not as stylish as Fulci's giallos or westerns).The car stunts are similar to the ones in Louis de Funes' Gendarme movies, which is quite interesting, since the Funes movie which features almost the same stunts (Le Gendarme se marie) was released a year after Operazione San Pietro. (So if anybody is a "thief" among these people, it must be Jean Girault, the director of the Gendarme movies.) All in all, if you like European (italian) comedies, give this one a try. It's not a gory movie at all, but it's still a Fulci-film with Fulci's stylistics (and it's a lot better and stylish than some horrors he made in the eighties).(John Bartha appears uncredited as the "talkative" one of the thugs who beat up Robinson.)

Just a copy of another movie, "Operazione San Gennaro", realized in hurry to try to repeat its success. The plot is substantially the same (it is simply shifted from Naples to Rome) but without the humour and the style of the first one. Many of the secondary characters are the same in both the movies.There is nothing particularly funny or smart in it, but for some strange reason this movie had more success outside Italy than the original, that is still broadcasted sometimes on the national television.

Misshapen, obnoxious z-grade film about the stealing of the Michelangelo's Pietà in which both Heinz Rühmann and Edward G. Robinson somehow seem to have been mistakingly landed in; one indeed feels pity for them. Apparently this is a kind of sequel to the Father Brown (based on the stories by G.K. Chesterton) films with Rühmann; all those involved should have been excommunicated.