My Friends (film)

My Friends
Italian theatrical release poster by Renato Casaro
Directed by	Mario Monicelli
Written by	Pietro Germi Leonardo Benvenuti Piero De Bernardi Tullio Pinelli
Starring	Ugo Tognazzi Gastone Moschin Philippe Noiret Duilio Del Prete Adolfo Celi Bernard Blier Milena Vukotic Silvia Dionisio
Music by	Carlo Rustichelli
Distributed by	Rizzoli Film
Release date	15 August 1975 (1975-08-15)
Running time	140 minutes
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

My Friends (Italian: Amici miei) is a 1975 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Mario Monicelli.

The film project belonged to Pietro Germi, who had no chance to make it happen because of his untimely death. The opening credits of the film, in fact, paid tribute to the author with the words "a film by Pietro Germi" which is followed only later by "directed by Mario Monicelli".

The film, which made it to number one on the Italian box-office in front of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, was followed by two sequels, Amici miei Atto II (1982, also by Monicelli), Amici miei Atto III (1985), directed by Nanni Loy.

Like in many other Monicelli movies, the main theme of Amici miei is friendship, seen from a rather bitter point of view. It tells the story of four middle-aged friends in Florence who organize together idle pranks (called zingarate, "gypsy shenanigans") in a continuous attempt to prolong childhood during their adult life.

Count Mascetti (Ugo Tognazzi) is an impoverished noble who has no means to support his family, but does not renounce high living pleasures anyway, and has an underage mistress, Titti (Silvia Dionisio). Perozzi (Philippe Noiret) is an easy-living journalist harassed by the unceasing disapproval of his wife and his son. Melandri (Gastone Moschin) is an architect employed by the City Hall (for the preservation and restoration of the City's countless monuments), whose main goal is to find the ideal woman. Necchi (Duilio Del Prete) is the owner of a café and pool hall where the friends usually plan their zingarate.