Fermo con le mani (1937) User Reviews

a pleasantly engaging comedy

[hofnarr · 6/10 · 20 July 2001]

Toto's first film of many was pleasantly engaging - reminiscent of Chaplin and replete with physical humor and repartee. Solomon wrote "There is nothing new under the sun" and that paired with Goethe's maxim of "Everything's been thought of before;the trouble is to think of it again," makes me wonder if Jamie Farr saw the cross-dressing sequence at some time or if Steve Martin saw any Toto films while he was growing up.

I've only seen a handful of other Toto films - I've liked most of them better than this, but that's just my taste - why not start off with an actor's first film and go from there?

Some Fun + Historical Interest

[MovieGuy-10924 · 7/10 · 8 July 2022]

So fun to see Totò at the beginning of his movie career. His talents are already well developed as well as his character, however he still appears to be channeling Charlie Chaplin. This is particularly interesting since they added a very sweet Shirley Temple ripoff as well. Add to this some Marx Brothers type scenarios and you're sure to have a success.

Totò, however, had already developed a character that was completely his own.

The movie went from situation to situation with only the barest of plots, but it was, of course, only a vehicle for all of the fun skits.

Seeing a rather young Tina Pica in the role of the maid was amazing. She was 53 in this film, but still much younger than any other movie. The movie would have been better if she had had a bigger role.

There were a few times when I laughed, but mostly it was a fun piece of history that I'm happy I saw.