Like the first one, this too can be seen in two ways, sad or having fun, not caring about the underlying melancholy. I think these comedies are brilliant for this reason, however this chapter is slightly inferior to the first, badly funny.

Ugo Fantozzi (a very average, timid and down-trodden office worker) is the creation of Paolo Villaggio who penned the adventures of Fantozzi based on his own experiences working for a large corporation. These stories were subsequently used as the basis of a number of films about Fantozzi all starring Villaggio.

Paolo Villaggio was a very fine comedian, who created various characters, of which Fantozzi was the best. Villaggio's humour can be best defined as tragi-comedy. Amid the humour, there is tragedy and things rarely end well for Villaggio's heroes.

"Il secondo tragico Fantozzi" was a follow up to the original and it was the peak of the Fantozzi series. There are a number of hilarious and well-choreographed scenes the best of which is the disastrous ship launch.

Film buffs may also enjoy the scenes where employees are repeatedly forced to watch, enjoy and discuss Sergei Eisenstein's immortal "Battleship Potemkin", culminating in the employees being forced to re-enact the Odessa steps massacre, another film high point.

Non Italian-speaking viewers may not grasp the humour as well as Italians as some specific references may not translate well and besides, much of the humour is in Paolo Villaggio's excellent narration, told in his inimitable fatalistic style. If you see a dubbed version, this is especially lost. A sub-titled version may be better, as at least Villaggio's voice will be heard.

A better director and a little more control on plot would have made a better film, but this is indeed still a bellyful of laughs.

The second, and arguably the best, entry in the FANTOZZI series is basically more of the same but here the results are even livelier and funnier. It goes without saying that all of the following are better watched and heard than read about and a knowledge of the Italian language is compulsory for fully appreciating this series in particular and most Italian comedies in general but, for what it's worth, here are the highlights of the film under review:

1) A superstitious boss takes Fantozzi to a gambling casino where the latter is mistaken for a homosexual and is subsequently forced by his boss to drink a case of sparkling water which inevitably causes Fantozzi to emit a gargantuan belch

2) The hunt which turns into a veritable battleground (complete with war tanks) and with the hunters eventually shooting on one another

3) The masterstroke of the film is the sequence which shows Fantozzi revolting against a film-fanatic superior of his when the employees are forced to watch Sergei Eisenstein's THE BATTELSHIP POTEMKIN (1925) for the nth time while there is an Italy vs. England football match being shown live on TV at the same time; Fantozzi blows his top and exclaims the immortal phrase: "For me, THE BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN is crazy s***" which is met by a flurry of applause by his (for once) appreciative colleagues, after which the superior's personal copy of the film is burnt and he is then himself forced to watch for three days running GIOVANNONA LONG-THIGH (1972), THE EXORCIST - Italian STYLE (1975) and a fictitious poliziottesco THE COPS ARE MAD!; the employees' eventual punishment is a weekly re-enactment of the famous Odessa steps sequence from Eisenstein's film with Fantozzi invariably being given the role of the baby in the ill-fated carriage! By the way, another favorite film of the superior to which the employees are often subjected to is Carl Dreyer's DAY OF WRATH (1943)!

4) Fantozzi receives free tickets for a circus performance during a period of sickness but decides to attend just the same highly camouflaged but, of course, he is immediately recognized by a superior of his and so tries to pass himself off as a circus performer with increasingly disastrous results including being fired from a cannon

5) A visit to a brothel with Reder and Anatrelli ends with the former in hospital (suffering the ire of a horde of unpaid taxi drivers) and Fantozzi himself sleeping outside his own flat as a watchdog (while the latter, who has since married Mazzamauro, goes on about his business on the inside with one of the girls they picked up)

6) A disastrous escapade with Mazzamauro shows Fantozzi incompetently performing several extreme physical feats so as to prove to her that he is even better than her husband

7) In the final sequence. Fantozzi goes back to work for the company as a human shield against lightning!