When can one truly call a "dazzling debut"? It was Carlo Verdone's 1980 film, Un sacco bello. Now that film has become a cult classic, with its array of characters and those lines that Carlo Verdone fans have etched in their memories: and it was time for its restoration, carried out at the L'Immagine Ritrovata laboratory under the supervision of Carlo Verdone himself and promoted by the Cineteca di Bologna in collaboration with Mediaset Infinity – RTI, Minerva Pictures, and SIAE – Società Italiana Autori ed Editori.
Playing out across three stories that intertwine on a mid-August holiday, Un sacco bello gives us unforgettable characters such as the hippie Ruggero, the wild Enzo, and the clumsy Leo, all played, of course, by Verdone (who plays six parts in the film), not to mention the perfect Renato Scarpa as Enzo's traveling companion and the explosive Mario Brega as Ruggero's father.
Characters born from the 1977 theatrical shows, Tali e quali and Rimanga fra noi…, where Verdone had gained experience playing twelve humorous roles, and from the television programme Non stop (1978-1979). Until, as Verdone himself recounts, "I started getting offers from the cinema world, even from Celentano. The most serious one was from Sergio Leone, who gave me a lot of advice and was my first godfather. One day Sergio said to me: 'Listen, I've been thinking about it, you have to write the story yourself and, on my behalf, you have to direct it too.' I had been dying to be a director for years, but I panicked and wanted to give up everything. My fears disappeared in an instant the day Sergio showed up at my house and told me that his directing lessons were starting from that very moment. It was three in the afternoon, and he stayed until eleven explaining everything to me, continuing for the next two months. Sergio taught me everything, and he was a fantastic producer. A lot of great things came out of that. I had used all my theater experience in the story. The character of the hippie was a fifteen-minute monologue. The other two episodes were born from direct experiences: the bully was someone I always met in a bar on Via dei Pettinari, the mummy's boy with the Spanish girl, a guy who lived below me. In short, I based myself very much on reality."
