That's Amore

History

The song first appeared in the soundtrack of the Martin and Lewis comedy film The Caddy, released by Paramount Pictures on August 10, 1953. In the film, the song is performed mainly by Dean Martin, with Jerry Lewis joining in and then followed by the other characters in the scene. It received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song of that year, but it lost to "Secret Love" from Calamity Jane starring Doris Day.

The track that was used for the single released by Capitol Records was recorded on August 13, 1953, (Session 3098; Master 11694-6), with the orchestra conducted by Dick Stabile, at Capitol Records' studios at 5505 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California. On November 7, 1953, Martin's record of the song, with "You're the Right One" (which was recorded at the same session as "That's Amore") on the flip side, peaked at #2 on the Billboard charts. The song was kept from the #1 spot when Les Paul and Mary Ford's Capitol Records single "Vaya Con Dios" returned to the #1 spot after being knocked out by Stan Freberg's Capitol Records single "St. George and the Dragonet", which had been #1 for the previous four weeks, after "Vaya Con Dios" had been #1 for the nine previous weeks.

The song remains closely identified with Dean Martin. That's Amore was used as the title for a 2001 video retrospective of Martin's career; and his son, Ricci Martin, titled his 2002 biography That's Amore: A Son Remembers Dean Martin. As an iconic song, "That's Amore" remains a secondary signature song.

Many artists have covered this song, one being Alma Cogan, who sang it on the BBC radio programme Take It From Here on December 31, 1953. An Italian adaptation sung by Connie Francis on her 1960 album More Italian Favorites ends in a reminder of the American English original.

Dean's daughter Deana Martin recorded her version of “That's Amore" in 2006. The song was released on her album Memories Are Made of This in 2006 by Big Fish Records.

In popular culture

In 1987, Dean Martin's rendition of "That's Amore" enjoyed a resurgence of popularity when it was featured in the popular film Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison and starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Danny Aiello, Vincent Gardenia, and Olympia Dukakis.

In the film Ishtar, the song is sung by the lounge singer duo of Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty.

During the 1992-1993 TV season, this song was used as the theme song for a TV show of the same name hosted by Luca Barbareschi. It was also used as the opening theme for seasons 1-4 (2000-2005) of Australian Comedy Series "Pizza". The song is used heavily on the soundtrack of Love Is All You Need, a 2012 Danish film.

In Friends, the song played while Monica and Pete were in Italy at the Pizza shop in the Season 3 episode, ''The One with the Hypnosis Tape", aired on March 13, 1997.

In Mario Teaches Typing 2, the Mario head sings the first bit of the song in one part of the game, but then changes the second bit to a line from a book called The Callahan Touch.

Since around the year 2000, the song has been sung by British football fans with the lyrics changed to "When the ball hits your head and you're sat in row Z, that's Zamora", in honor of the English footballer Bobby Zamora. Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli uses the song as his walk-up music at PNC Park (as of the 2015 season).

A parody of the song, "That's Immoral", is sung at the end of The Simpsons' 2005 episode, "The Italian Bob".

In 2007, song was briefly sung by John C. Reilly in the film Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

In 2009, Andrew Garfield as Anton in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus sings the first line of the song as the troop roams in its caravan, quickly followed by a fellow telling him to shut up about food, as they are all starving.

The song was parodied twice in web comics. Once by Craig Swanson in 1993, and again by Randall Munroe in 2017.