A Night of Fame

Monicelli and Steno collaborated on this Faust comedy with overall pleasing if sometimes heavy handed results. The Devil first helps a young professor become an opera star and make the moves on a blonde that wasn't impressed with him earlier, though a singing rival, one of those heavy set battle-axes, causes him a bit of trouble. In round two it is a hunky fighter who doesn't cooperate with plans by a corrupt fixer and a dark siren to throw the fight. The last person the Devil helps is a diplomat who makes a surprising speech bringing together Israel and the Arabs, the US and the USSR (a post WWII pacifist message that was very much in the air in Europe when this film was made.)