A blind, woman-chasing, self-loathing ex–army officer drinks and scowls his way from the homes of Turin to the churches of Rome to the prostitute-cluttered alleys of Naples in this unabashedly populist comedy from veteran satirist Dino Risi, “a tour-de-force for actor Vittorio Gassman” (Variety). A young pipsqueak of a sergeant (Alessandro Momo, who tragically died in a motorcycle accident after filming) is appointed to keep the blind captain (Gassman) company on a trip through the stratified (and literally class-ified) zones of Italy, from North to Central to South; as soon becomes apparent, the young boy's duties involve not so much helping the old man cross the street or carrying his bags as scoring alcohol and hookers for him. It's not the boy who will keep the captain from death, though, but a woman he seeks out at the end. Gassman won the best actor award at Cannes for his sublime, comical, and ultimately affecting performance.