Watch out, spoilers!
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Everyone knows about such a genre as comedy in Italian - commedia all'italiana, the first sample of it is the film Mario Monicelli "Attackers, as always, remained unknown" / I soliti ignoti (in the original title used a speech stamp from the legal (detective) lexicon, approximately corresponding to our turn "The identities of criminals are not established"), shot in 1958. This is a satirical comedy that seems to be considered a kind of parody of Jules Dassin’s film “Male Showdown”, but I haven’t watched it, so I won’t say anything about it.
Car thief Cosimo (Memmo Carotenuto) is caught when trying to steal a car and he is put in prison, from which he seeks to get out with all his might, because he learned about the possibility of obtaining relatively easy and rich prey. But in order to get out, he needs to find a scapegoat (in their terminology, a sheep) who will agree to take the blame for the reward. This becomes Pepe - a boxer-loser (Vittorio Gassmann), but fate does not favor Cosimo, and instead of him, Pepe is released on probation, who tricked Cosimo into his plan - to enter through an allegedly empty apartment into a pawnshop and empty there a safe with jewelry. Once released, Pepe contacts Cosimo's friends - photographer Tiberio (Marcello Mastroianni), petty thieves Marco (Renato Salvatori), Michele (Tiberio Murgia) and Capannelle (Carlo Pisacani). Dante Kruchani (Toto) is also involved in the case, who gives them advice and tools for rent. Through the stump and deck, they are preparing for a robbery, which will also take place, which will result in a note in the newspaper that unknown burglars broke into the apartment to steal only pasta and beans. How not to remember there was a well-known and already remembered cartoon "Robbery by ...". The film is good - there is no seriousness, with which detectives are usually removed, the heroes are all knaves and losers. Again, we see a great cast, this is Vittorio Gassmann's first comedy role.
The film was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best film in a foreign language, two sequels were shot (although not Monicelli himself, for which I thank him).