Crazy Desire

Movie is about midlife crisis. This is the story of a man who is getting old and longing for his youth. Soundtrack by Morricone is fantastic.

A middle-aged man has always led an active life and struggles to accept the passing of time. During a trip he meets a group of boys and joins them, eventually falling in love with a sixteen year old.

However, he will be forced to admit that there is an age for everything and that for him that time has now passed.

In this movie we see the drama of a man who must recognize that his time has passed despite not wanting to recognize it. I was a little surprised that no one in the movie has any problems with the fact that a fifty-year-old falls in love with a sixteen-year-old, but obviously those were other times.

Was it crazy? I certainly think it was in this case. The film sets up with this sophisticated guy tony, a succesful businessman with a beautiful girlfriend his own age. Its also established he has no problems with bedding other numerous women. And yet he falls head over heels for a teenage temptress and suffers multiple humiliations on her part. Frankly he is made to look an absolute fool by her and the kids she knocks about this.

You just ache for him to get up and leave but franchesca has him completely under her spell. OK its easy to see why on just a visual level. Cathereine Spaak, 16 years old in real life, is an absolutely mesmerizing beauty. But she has a touch of evil in her character that middle aged tony just cant see or compute. This was highly watchable to the very end.

Voglia Matta is virtually lacking in any redeeming qualities, apart from occasionally competent if uninspired cinematography. Aside from Tognazzi, the acting is substandard and even he seems to be going through the motions. The characters and motives of nearly everyone lack credibility, and none are likeable or sympathetic much less amusing. The scenarios are beyond absurd, unintentionally. The gang of adolescents are extremely grating - some middle-aged writer's idea of what today's spunky youth (ca. 1961) probably kind of ought to be like, with a double helping of casual indifference towards others. The scene of Spaak forcing Tognazzi to careen at high speed down a small winding road, threatening dozens of people's lives in the process, is treated as a grand and clever jape. And that's about the highlight of the film. Almost every comic gag falls flat. It's hard to see why even a contemporary audience was supposed to find humor in a 39 year old father repeatedly pawing a 15 year old girl.

If the film can be said to have had a purpose at all, it was to show off Catherine Spaak's beach body. That is the one thing it managed to do.

The older, positive reviews of this film are puzzling. It is one to avoid.

Someone PLEASE PLEASE tell me where I can obtain a copy of this Ugo Tognazzi vehicle from 1962, which also starred the luscious Catherine Spaak. One of many of early 60s Italian comedies that explored the bittersweet longings of aging adults amongst youth culture, CRAZY DESIRE or THIS MAD URGE boasted Ennio Morricone's first score and some haunting pop songs of the period, plus a lot of good looking Italian youth in beachwear. Most poignant, though, was the aging but dapper Tognazzi in his sports car, clinging wistfully to his younger self. This film is burned in memory now for 30 years as I, myself, approach that turning point. See it with someone you're growing older with.