Totò in the Moon 1958

Achilles Paoloni is a delivery boy for Soubrette, a modest publishing house run by the stern cavaliere Pasquale Belafronte. He pours his energy into a science fiction novel, dreaming of seeing it published, but the path is rocky and the support from the publisher is hostile for years. Achilles keeps his faith in his own story, hoping that one day the right opportunity will appear.

Meanwhile, U.S. scientists discover a strange substance in Achilles’s blood, glumonium, a bizarre trait tied to his infancy after being fed monkey breast milk. This peculiarity makes him a candidate for space travel, which doesn’t go unnoticed by authorities. When two FBI agents arrive at the office to recruit him for a space mission, Achilles misreads the scene, assuming they’re publishers hunting for international distribution of his book. The situation catches the cavaliere’s attention as well, and Pasquale abruptly turns his stance around, pushing to publish the novel at his own expense and even agreeing to marry Achilles to his daughter Lidia to clinch the deal.

The twist sharpens when the United States reveals a more urgent plan: they want to launch a real rocket, with Achilles aboard, rather than simply promote a manuscript. Achilles becomes entangled in a web of Cold War intrigue, as envoys from a mysterious foreign power—the German rocket scientist Von Braut and the alluring spy Tatiana—show intense interest in the young man. The plot thickens with a surreal science-fiction parody: alien beings, the Anellids, descend to Earth and deploy two cosoni, exact copies of Pasquale and Achilles, intended to be shipped to the moon. Their mission is to derail the human lunar effort, because preventing humanity’s conquest of space is what keeps a fragile extraterrestrial peace intact.

The chase moves from offices to airstrips to the launchpad as the Germans abduct the real Pasquale and the real Achilles’s duplicate, place them in a sleep-like state, and send them toward space inside a rocket. Yet fate winds differently, as the Anellids intervene and steer the rocket toward a dramatic moon landing. In this topsy-turvy sequence, Pasquale confronts the alien who has taken him hostage in a way that blends farce with wonder. He fears for his family and wants to return, but the Anellid’s reveal begins to unravel the truth: the real Achilles has become a celebrated science fiction author with a life and a partner, and Lidia is part of that life.

The startling consequence is that Pasquale discovers his own replacement in the cosone he created—his presence has not only been tolerated but effectively substituted, even in the realm of personal relationships, to the point of the cosone courting his former maid in much the same way Pasquale once did. With this revelation, Pasquale’s longing to reclaim his place shifts toward a different kind of resolution. Exiled on the moon, he persuades the Anellid to turn Achilles’s cosone into a real woman, transforming the copy into someone who can carry forward the life Achilles has built and the dreams he has shared.

What follows is a blend of satire, romance, and speculative fantasy, anchored by the central contrasts between ambition and hostility, desire and duty, and the human impulse to reach beyond known frontiers. The narrative threads weave together a story of personal growth and communal understanding, where the pursuit of science and the artistry of storytelling collide with a galaxy of misinterpretations, doubles, and otherworldly interventions. The result is a timeless comedy that uses a moon-shot premise to explore loyalty, fame, and the cost of chasing a dream, all delivered with a light touch and a winking nod to classic science fiction and social satire.