Hey, listeners. We're asking for your help. Do you have any idea what the Italian means that is being spoken in this scene? It's from the 1980 movie "Fatso," starting Dom DeLuise and Anne Bancroft. We have a caller who mentioned this scene and we'd love to be able to give her an answer.
They are playing Italian-Americans, so the language could be a dialect or Americanized version of Italian -- something spoken by the second generation to live in the US -- rather than straight schoolbook Italian.
It's just the one sentence spoken by Robert Costanza's character, right? (Is that Robert Costanza?) Doesn't sound like Italian at all to me. Any chance his character is Sicilian, or something else like Galician, Basque or Catalan? I'm just guessing.
It's also what Anne Bancroft says right after she finds the car keys on the floor.
What? No, Johny says something like /'kVma 'ki@ 'putS@nV Ska'ta:dV/ (or, if you prefer, come-a KEY-a POOCH-en-a shkah-TAA-duh). What she says when finding the keys is just "What the hell is this?", followed by "These are the keys to your /'skaS@n 'va~/ (SCOSH-n VAHN, only with the French 'n' at the end), and finally "Well where the hell is Dom?".
Exactly: what is that word she says? They play Italian-Americans -- DeLuise and Bancroft were both Italian-Americans in real life, so the other languages are unlikely.