I'm For the Hippopotamus! (1979)

I'm For the Hippopotamus! (1979) is a Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill movie that I hadn't seen for years before deciding to rewatch it recently.  I was surprised by how little of it, beyond the beginning, a few fight sequences and the ending, that I actually remembered.  Which probably has less to do with my memory than the formulaic nature of these films - after a while, once you've seen a lot of them, they all begin to feel interchangeable.  Which isn't to say that they aren't well made or greatly entertaining, they were simply made to a strict, very successful, formula.  All the elements of said formula are present here, with Hill and Spencer adopting their usual respective characterisations of the cunning, good natured, trickster (who is never quite as smart as he thinks he is), and the curmudgeonly, short fused bruiser who really has a heart of gold.  As always, they start off sparring with each other, with Spencer, as always, rising to the bait of Hill's affectionate (yet still often cruel) tricks and teasing.  Again, as if often the case, they are unlikely relatives - in this case, cousins.  The plot also adheres to the usual formula, which sees them after their initial rivalry, teaming up to take on a local bad guy who is oppressing the locals - which involves various scams and schemes masterminded by Hill and lots of brawling, led by Spencer.

Only the locations change.  For I'm For the Hippoptamus! the setting, unsurprisingly, is Africa, with the villain being involved in running locals off of their land and rounding up the local wildlife to illicitly sell it to foreign zoos.  Of course, he has the local authorities - police, courts and judiciary - in his pocket, so it is up to Terrance and Bud to sort things out.  The villain is played, quite effectively, by former boxer Joe Bugner.  Just to confuse things, in the English language version Spencer is dubbed by a voice actor with a South African accent, while his regular English language voice actor provides Bugner's voice (although Bugner, obviously, spoke English as a first language, but this sort of post-production redubbing was par forthe course in Italian movies of the period).  As was usual from the mid-seventies onward, Hill provides his own English speaking voice, although he was dubbed by another actor for the Italian soundtrack (despite being Italian - his real name being Mario Girotto)!  Both their buddy pictures, like this one, and their individual films (which generally followed similar formulae) were incredibly popular in their day, making Hill and Spencer into huge international stars.  They weren't the first Italian comedy duo to enjoy success on the big screen, following in the footsteps of Franco and Ciccio, who enjoyed success in a long series of movies in the sixties, (usually directed by Lucio Fulci, before he found global fame with his zombie movies), but never broke into the international market like Hill and Spencer.  

Overall, I'm For the Hippopotamus!, although offering nothing new, remains a typical - and typically entertaining - Hill and Spencer outing, packed full of visual gags and comedic violence.   As ever, what carries the movie is the charisma of the two leads, who always succeed in coming over as enormously likeable, whatever trickery or acts of gross violence they engage in as the plot unfolds.  There's nothing deep or intellectual about their humour, but it rarely fails to entertain for ninety minutes, or so.