Category: Humor Publisher: Veni Vici Books
Pages: 120
Copyright: May 2013
ISBN-13: 9780988018914
A book adaptation of a screenplay - a character driven romantic comedy about sex, soccer & skulduggery with a surfeit of sports. The film goes into development later in 2013. It will star Christian De Sica, Italy's most popular star in his first English speaking role. Cher will be sought to play his love interest.
It is 1986 in Rome. Handsome, ubiquitous, charming, impulsive and overly romantic Carlo di Novi had managed Arturo Napoli, the world's greatest tenor. He had found Arturo when he coached a kid soccer team, heard him sing in the locker room, was blown away and built his career while establishing himself as a top impresario. But too much dolce vita found Carlo losing it all. Reduced to hustling little deals to put pasta on the table, he makes a deal with some Mafioso characters. The deal goes south; the mobsters come to kill him and Carlo flees Rome to hide out in New York with long-lost nephew, Al Primavera, and his beautiful, angelic wife, Kiki.
The latter, according to hubby Al, is the most perfect wife a man could dream of - always cheerful, always accommodating, a genius in the kitchen, designs and sews all her own clothes, keeps the cleanest, tidiest home (you could eat off her floors). But she has this "thing" – it is called exhibitionism. She loves to strip. Al informs, "If I didn't let her strip in night clubs, she'd be doing it in shopping plazas." This has brought her fame and a fan club as "Kiki, the Queen of Clubs."
When Al asks Carlo what brought him to New York, Carlo gropes for an answer, then notices some kids throwing a ball around on the street and says, “Sports! I came to check out sports.”
Al takes him around to baseball games, football games, and basketball but Carlo finds them ludicrous and his criticism of them is hilarious. He is overwhelmed, however, when he learns of the huge salaries earned by sports stars. He reckons that if they get so much, the owners must be billionaires. Since soccer is all he knows and loves, Al takes him to a bedraggled soccer game.
Soccer in America has hit an all-time low that year. In the stands, however, Carlo spies a stunning beauty surrounded by some rough looking characters. He falls instantly in love. It is Lucia Morosi, widow of a notorious gangster who was like the Teflon Don; the law couldn’t touch him but cancer finally did him in.
Al explains to Carlo that he doesn’t have a chance with Lucia. The mobsters guard her like a bunch of killer mother-hens. Nobody is good enough for her. Titled Europeans and Hollywood stars had tried to win her favors and were all rejected. Besides, she is peculiarly religious; feels she has a special relationship with God and has an idea that newlyweds should not touch each other until their souls are wed.
As Carlo views her through his opera glasses, he becomes more and more smitten and nothing will dismay him. Al informs that she made Morosi wait for over a year after their wedding before she allowed him in her bed.
Carlo is shocked. Al adds that Morosi had been born with a frown and had never been seen to smile but a year after their wedding he developed a permanent grin. Carlo wrings his hands with emotion imagining how wonderful that woman must be in bed. He decides that he will make his fortune in America with a soccer team and win the widow’s hand in marriage.
Al explains that soccer is dead in America but facts cannot dissuade Carlo. He sets a plan to buy a soccer team, popularize the sport in America and marry Lucia.
How he goes about it gives us a bumpy and hilarious ride. At one point, to get some media attention for the sport and his team, he hires a hundred cheerleaders and fits them out in special costumes that incorporate a remote control and helium capsule. He blows the costumes off them, they inflate and rise to fill the sky like so many balloons leaving the girls on the field to cover up as best they can. The audience and the press go wild.
In the end, when he marries the beautiful widow and is too impatient to wait for a year for the nuptials he seduces his wife in a classic scene of romantic comedy.
Th
Excerpt
Once seated in the stands Al tried to explain to Carlo the game, its history and its rules. Carlo had told him he’d never seen the game before and the explanation confused Carlo who found it all making less and less sense.
A fat, bald man sitting next to them had begun to listen in on their conversation. He was getting a kick out of it. In fact, he had started turning away from them so as not to let them see him laughing.
Al’s effort had begun to drain him, “No, no, no, Uncle Carlo. You see, the batter gets three strikes and four balls. If he doesn’t swing when it’s a strike - like when the ball comes in proper and he should swing - then it’s a strike and he’s got only two left before he’s out.”
Carlo shakes his head in confusion but makes an effort to listen. Al continues, “But if the pitcher doesn’t get it right in there and the batter is smart enough not to swing, then the ump calls it a ball and if that happens four times, then he gets to walk.”
Carlo asks, “Who walk?”
Al says, “The batter.”
Carlo, asks, “Why not he runs?”
“Well, he could walk or run if he wanted to, I guess, it doesn’t matter,” says Al.
Carlo gets excited, “Doesn’t matter? What kind of sport is that?”
Al now reaches out to put his left hand on Carlo’s hands to calm him. Then he points to the field with his right hand. “Watch!”
The pitcher winds up, then stops and walks toward the catcher who meets him half way.
“Why they stop?” asks Carlo. “What they doing?”
“They got something to say to each other,” says Al. “A confab.”
“Very social,” says Carlo. “The game stops because they have to gossip? Not good manners to have secrets from the rest of team. Why they don’t all come together for conversation...have some vino...make a party...?”
Al is focusing on the game. “Watch, Uncle Carlo. Watch now.”
The pitcher pitches, the batter swings and connects. The ball goes over the fence. The crowd, of course, goes wild. Al is just as excited as the rest of the crowd but Carlo watches it all with critical eyes. He focuses on the heavy-set batter who now jogs lazily around the bases.
Carlo exclaims, “Look at that lazy no good. Why he don’t run? He got a hit! Not should walk!
Al points to the field, “It’s over the fence, for crying out loud. A home run! They can’t touch him now.”
Carlo sticks to his critical guns, “If he would run more his behind would not be so fat.”
Al laughs, “You’re a card, Uncle Carlo.”
Carlo shakes his head, “And for this they pay him milioni?”
“Some basketball players make even more,” says Al nodding.
Carlo has seen enough. His hands gesture that he is finished with baseball. “O.K., Alla right! Let us go see the basketball.”
Professional Reviews
100 Naked Girls
4.0 out of 5 stars
100 Naked Girls
By Big Al on May 25, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
A smooth-talking, womanizing Italian strikes it rich (both with money and willing females), falls (or jumps) off the gravy train, comes to America where he falls in love with the widow of a mafia boss, and decides to become a one woman man, if only he can catch her. Sounds … different, doesn’t it? One Hundred Naked Girls is a farcical story and a fun read. Originally written as a screenplay (more about that later), Halmay’s writing often seems like it must be violating the author’s maxim of “show, don’t tell” as the narrator, Carlo, describes the happenings around him. One scene (the one the title comes from) happens entirely in Carlo’s imagination and feels like a scene from a slightly offbeat musical. Yet once I got into the spirit of the book, a bit off-the-wall with a touch of whimsy, Halmey’s visual paintings delivered via Carlo’s narration seemed natural.
After Carlo’s fictional story ends, Halmay tells the story behind the story in an extended postscript (roughly 15% of the book). This postscript chronicles the history of the story that eventually became this book, including writing a screenplay, and multiple false starts and derailed attempts to make a movie. Sprinkled with autobiographical bits from the author’s work in the advertising and film industries. It’s an interesting glimpse into what it takes to get a movie made. Or not. That story is still playing out.
**Originally written for "Books and Pals" book blog. May have received a free review copy. **
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