Avanti!

Avanti! (Italian: [a•vːàːŋ•ti]; Italian interjection – 'come in!') is a 1972 comedy film produced and directed by Billy Wilder, and starring Jack Lemmon and Juliet Mills. The screenplay by Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond is based on Samuel A. Taylor's play, which had a short run for the 1968 Broadway season. It was co-produced by Wilder and Diamond's Phalanx Productions and Lemmon's Jalem Productions.

The film follows a businessman attempting to recover the body of his father from Italy. It premiered on December 17, 1972. The film was nominated for six Golden Globe Awards: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Director (Wilder), Best Screenplay (Diamond & Wilder), Best Supporting Actor — Motion Picture (Revill), Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical (Mills), and Best Actor – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical—the last of which was won by Lemmon, who set a record by winning his third Golden Globe in this particular category.

Wendell Armbruster Jr. embarks on a journey to Ischia to claim his father's body, killed in an automobile accident during an annual trip to the resort island in the Bay of Naples. For the past decade, Baltimore industrialist Wendell Armbruster Sr. has spent a month each year at the Grand Hotel Excelsior, ostensibly for the therapeutic mud baths. On his way, Wendell Jr. encounters Pamela Piggott, a traveler from London who has come to Ischia to claim the body of her mother, Catherine. Wendell learns that his father and Pamela’s mother died together in the same car accident. To Wendell's surprise, he discovers that his father ("Willie") had been having an affair with Pamela's mother ("Kate") throughout those ten years, despite maintaining a marriage in Baltimore.

Already aware of this clandestine annual meeting between their parents, Pamela suggests burying them together on Ischia, a proposal that does not resonate with Wendell. Wendell wants to take his father’s remains back home for a formal memorial, unrealistically scheduled in three days’ time, to be broadcast to employees, the Coast Guard, and US dignitaries (including Henry Kissinger) as befits his status. As the hotel manager, Carlo Carlucci, plans a funeral and the transport of Wendell Sr.'s remains, the duo faces constant delays due to the bureaucratic hurdles and the leisurely pace of work inherent in Italian traditions. Arrogant and impatient of the red tape, Wendell acts out rudely to Pamela, the hotel staff, and Italian administrators.

A complicated series of events unfolds. Their plans are disrupted when the bodies mysteriously vanish from the morgue. Wendell suspects Pamela initially, but they soon discover that the Trotta family, whose vineyard suffered damage in the car accident, has stolen the remains. The Trottas demand a hefty ransom of two million lire, revealing another "Italian tradition" - extortion. Simultaneously, the hotel valet, Bruno, deported from America and seeking to return, attempts blackmail using compromising photos of "Willie and Kate."

Initially, the boorish Wendell is ungallant with regard to Pamela’s being about 20 pounds overweight, calling her "Fat-Ass" within earshot. As they re-create their parents’ traditional activities together during their annual flings - prodded by the hotel staff who stage events in fond tribute to the popular deceased couple - Pamela’s caring nature mollifies Wendall’s arrogance and they fall in love. Bruno’s blackmail photos now also include naked photos of Wendell and Pamela as they bathed together in the bay. Bruno is shot dead by Anna, a pregnant chambermaid, when she learns that he wants to avoid marrying her and instead is plotting to return to the US with money raised by blackmail.

Despite these complications, Wendell's wife back in the States, using her connections, expedites the situation by involving State Department Agent J.J. Blodgett. Growing sympathetic to the clandestine couple’s long commitment to each other, Wendell accedes to Willie and Kate being buried together in the Carlucci family's burial vault. This leaves the problem of sending a body back to be escorted by Blodgett. Ironically fulfilling blackmailer Bruno's wish of going back to the America, they place his remains in a coffin marked as Wendell Senior's. After enjoying the mud baths, Blodgett appoints Wendell Sr. to an embassy post, cynically promoting "Equal Opportunity Employment" of the deceased - unaware of the doubly cynical ploy resulting in the coffin holding Bruno's remains. Blodgett then sends "Wendell Sr.'s coffin," to the US in a diplomatic pouch, where it will not be opened and is destined for a closed-casket ceremony.

Carlucci assures Wendell and Pamela that their suite will be reserved for them during the same time next year, continuing their parents' tradition. Pamela assures Wendell that she will have lost the excess weight, to which he replies gallantly that if she loses even one pound, their liaison is off. Concluding their stay in Ischia, Wendell and Blodgett head to the Rome airport aboard a U.S. Navy helicopter.