Toto in the Moon

Totò nella luna
Directed by	Steno
Written by	Steno Lucio Fulci Ettore Scola Sandro Continenza
Produced by	Mario Cecchi Gori
Starring	Totò Sylva Koscina Ugo Tognazzi
Cinematography	Marco Scarpelli
Edited by	Giuliana Martelli
Music by	Alessandro Derevitsky
Distributed by	Cecchi Gori Group
Release date	1958 (1958)
Running time	95 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Totò nella luna (internationally released as Toto in the Moon) is a 1958 Italian comedy science fiction film written and directed by Steno.^[1][2] The script was co-written by Lucio Fulci. The film starred Sylva Koscina, fresh from her appearance in the 1958 blockbuster Hercules.

Plot

Achilles Paoloni, employed by Soubrette, a small publishing house of the knight Pasquale Belafronte, writes a science fiction novel that he hopes in vain to publish with the help of the hostile knight.

U.S. scientists are aware that Achilles has a substance in the blood suitable for spaceflight, the glumonio, inheritance of the unusual breast milk-based monkey when he was newborn. When two FBI agents are sent to the office to propose a space mission to Achilles, he thinks they are representatives interested in publishing his novel overseas. The cavalier Pasquale, aware of it, goes back on years of insults and hostility to the poor Achilles and does everything to publish the novel at his own expense, even agreeing to the marriage between the young man and his daughter Lydia. Soon, however, he realizes that it was a mistake: the U.S. does not want to launch the rocket in space at all (the title of the novel by Achilles), but the young man himself, however, also disputed by a mysterious foreign power guided by the interplanetary scientist German Von Braut and the beautiful spy Tatiana.

The planes of the two rival powers are hampered by strange aliens (the Annelids) that send down two "cosoni", identical copies of Pasquale and Achilles, in order for them to be shipped on the moon (a parody of Invasion of the Body Snatchers), this is to prevent the conquest of space most humans affect the peaceful balance between peoples aliens. Comic situations and various misunderstandings cause the true Paschal and "cosone" Achilles are found together on the moon. Pasquale will adapt to living in space only when extraterrestrials will transform the clone of Achilles into a beautiful girl.

Cast

• Totò: Pasquale Belafronte
• Sylva Koscina: Lidia
• Ugo Tognazzi: Achille
• Sandra Milo: Tatiana
• Luciano Salce: Von Braut
• Giacomo Furia: commendator Santoni
• Jim Dolen: O'Connor
• Francesco Mulé: il vigile urbano
• Marco Tulli: un creditore

Release

Toto nella luna released on November 28, 1958.^[3]

References

1. Alberto Anile. I film di Totò (1946-1967): la maschera tradita. Le mani, 1998.
2. Roberto Chiti; Roberto Poppi; Enrico Lancia. Dizionario del cinema italiano - I film. Gremese Editore, 1991. p. 370.
3. Lucas 2013, p. 214.

Sources

• Lucas, Tim (2013). Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark. ISBN 978-0-9633756-1-2.

External links

• Toto in the Moon at IMDb