This slapstick picture contains amusing , funny scenes , fresh and diverting moments but also flaws and gaps . When a deported gangster dies in Italy, the U. S. Treasury Department is very interested in the one million dollars Madigan (Cesar Romero) owed the government, but managed to take to Italy with him. The U. S. Treasury Department is interested in Madigan's one million dollars owed, sending Agent Jason Phister (Dustin Hoffman) to Rome to collect the money, ensuring no one knows he's an agent. Jason arrives in Rome to recover funds swiped from missing gangster and he starts to nose out the million. His criteria for the job is that no one would ever guess he's an agent of the United States government. Jason is a bumbling and conceited agent of the United States Treasury Department who becomes involved in a lot of messes, confusion, chases and mayhem . Meanwhile, he is relentlessly pursued by an Italian commissioner (Gustavo Rojo) and meets a widow (Elsa Martinelli) who was previously related to Madigan.
Fun moments along with embarrassing in this first film from today's established actor Dustin Hoffman. This entertaining, slightly engaging movie is crammed of silly incidents, pursuits, shootouts, moving stunt-work , colorful outdoors and lots of humor. It is just a mildly amusing action comedy with a lot of thieves, mobsters, cops, and other ambitious people. A co-production between Italy and Spain, the interiors were actually shot in the Iberian Peninsula, and the exteriors in idyllic Rome. The movie gets sympathetic and hilarious moments here and there . A simple comedy with action scenes and chases, it was filmed in 1966, but it was not released until three years later, in 1969. The film has the main novelty of being Dustin Hoffman's film debut, with an apparently innocent character and a gentle personality, which reminds us, in some ways, of the role that would launch him to fame the following year in the film: The Graduate. This Hoffman debut is to his career what ¨The Last Chalice¨ was to Paul Newman's and ¨Studs and Kitty¨ was Sylvester Stallone. Here Dustin Hoffman steals the show by parodying the classic character of the stupid and botcher detective, including his ordinary faces , grimaces and gestures; and taking the style of Inspector Clouseau from the long-running Pink Panther series starring Peter Sellers . Being a Spanish/Italian coproduction appear Spain actors as Gustavo Rojo, Fernando Hilbeck, Gérad Tichy, José María Caffarel, Alfredo Mayo, Hector Quiroga and Italians: Riccardo Garrone, Franco Fabrizi, Umberto Raho, Daniele Vargas, Remo De Angelis, Luigi Bonos. Despite being third billed, Cesar Romero barely appears in the film.
Il testamento di Madigan (Italy) Agente quasi speciale Frank Putzu 1X7 (Italy) El millón de Madigan (Spain) Sid Pink's Madigan's Millions (United States) Madigan's Million. The motion picture written by José Luis Bayonas was lousily directed by Giorgio Gentilli. He was a director assistant such as: Zanna Bianca alla riscossa, The AntiChrist, A Lizard in a Woman's Skin, Our Man in Jamaica, Playing the field, The Tough and the Mighty, The Eroticist, The Brotherhood, Roma Bene. And occasionally filmmaker , shooting a few films such as: A Man Called Sledge , Bang Bang Kid and Un dollaro per 7 vigliacchi. Rating: 4/10. Recommended only to the terminally fool-hardy.
