This hilarious comedy from the producing team of Golan-Globus is probably the best, but sadly obscure film to come out from the Cannon label, even for a movie to come out in 1986.
David Landsberg stars as Donald Wilson, a nebbish nerd whose obsession with crime novels forces him to lose a string of jobs after one comic mishap after another. One day, he notices a sign on a phone booth advertising to be a detective. The agency responsible is Miller Detective Agency run by Paul Miller (Lorin Dreyfuss, older brother of Richard), a slick high-roller whose business is in financial trouble because Paul has owed money to a lot of people and some will stop at nothing to get it. Of course, Donald is the naive stooge who enrolls into the detective school. One day, they stumble across a kidnapping plot involving a young couple, Carlo and Catherina madly in love that's hampered by the rivalry of two Italian mafia families, the Zanettis and the Lombardis. The Lombardi patriarch assign brutish hit-man Bruno (exploitation favorite George Eastman) to kidnap Catherina, who is in New York visiting her cousin, Mario. Donald and Paul go to the house she's in on a whim as part of a fake dog newspaper ad. Catherina gives Donald a valuable pennant. They decide to take the pennant back to Mario, who's boarded a plane back home to Italy. They then find themselves in the country and must put an end to the 200 year old feud between the families and reunite Carlo and Catherina.
Landsberg and Dreyfuss, who also wrote the screenplay, have terrific chemistry together and the film contains a lot of funny slapstick gags, many of which Eastman gets the brunt of. It also includes a wild car chase through the streets of Rome, when a movie set and a city market get obliterated, as well as a daring foot chase in the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Donald, though inexperienced, even gets to drive a Ferrari that ends in a bad crash.
The two guys would write and star in another film the following year, DUTCH TREAT, that sadly wasn't as well-received as this one.
