This on-the-road adventure - whose ironically pompous title translates as "Will our heroes manage to save their friend mysteriously disappeared in Africa?" - is the comedic version of Joseph Conrad's masterpiece Heart of Darkness.
It must first be stated that if Ettore Scola were to remake this movie today, it would probably be very different in one regard: it would be careful to feature more fully developed African characters. As it is, the film is only really interested in its (pre-dominantly male) European characters, and can be accused of the same fault that Chinua Achebe laid at the door of Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness' (of which this film is a kind of comic variation), that of using Africa as a mere backdrop to an investigation of European problems.
This marvellous film is an authentic masterpiece, perhaps among the best products of the Italian cinema. The confrontation of two different human kinds, the enterprising editor Fausto Di Salvio (Alberto Sordi) and his shabby book-keeper Ubaldo Palmarini, interpreted by an extraordinary Bernard Blier, is the main source of an intelligent and never ending comicality.
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