User reviews

Grab your chins and prepare to do some stroking because we are in serious territory here with Francesco Rosi's Illustrious Corpses.

No jaw-socking, car chases and even gunfights here, but don't run off to Maurizio Merli yet. What we have here is a nice, thick Spezzatino full of meat (plot), vegetables (twists), and herbs (cameo appearances by various Italian genre actors), all mainly revolving around middle-aged policeman Rogas.

The general tone of the film is set when we see an elderly judge wandering through the Catacombe dei Cappuccini, looking at the corpses and perhaps considering his own mortality. That would be ironic because about a minute after he leaves someone unknown assassin shoots him.

This brings us to Rogas, Italy's best detective, brought in because killing judges isn't generally approved. At first Rogas brings in the local mob, but as one Don states: "You know you are wasting your time with us." While he's doing that another judge is killed on a highway, and yet another while Rogas is in the same building. This piles significant pressure on Rogas as the situation becomes, as one person puts it 'political'.

Rogas reckons he's nailed the case when he starts digging into trials involving all three judges, which leads to him finding a suspect for whom every image has been destroyed, including photo albums and even police documentation. This leads the film into giallo territory for a brief time as we see another judge get stalked and murdered, while Rogas is pushed to look at subversive groups and bag a quick arrest by his superiors.

This two hour long film that has very little action should be snooze-fest, but it is relentlessly fascinating to watch Rogas weave his way through the political labyrinth of Italy's Years of Lead, speaking with bemused, yet sinister Senators like Fernando Rey (great here), angry, unrepentent judges like Max Von Sydow (also great), and the Communist party (including journalist Luigi Pistilli). You also get cameos from Marcel Bozuffi and Tina Aumont thrown in for good measure.

What also keeps you watching is the ever growing sense of doom and paranoia that begins to surround Rogas as he loses confidence and trust in every single person he deals with, leaving him constantly looking over his shoulder. There's a scene where he realises his telephone is bugged that's as foreboding as any horror film.

I highly recommend this one - it's dark and complex. Like a Spezzatino.

Near perfect political thriller, with a perfectly cast Lino Ventura in the leading role. Supporting roles, cinematography, direction and score, it's all very close to perfection. This film has this unique dark, typical European 70's-movie atmosphere, of which these French-Italian productions seem to have the copyright.

A big 8.

Director Francesco Rosi calls ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES "a trip through the monsters and monstrosities of power." It is a detective thriller with the format of a political expose and deals with an unseen killer whose victims are judges, public prosecutors and magistrates. Viewers who have seen Rosi's THREE BROTHERS remember that one of the episodes in that film deals with a magistrate has a nightmare in which he envisions his own murder my terrorists. In ILLUSTRIOUS CORPSES Rosi elevates the crime of assassination to a cataclysmic dimension within which a modern industrial society is dragged to the brink of collapse. It is a structurally elliptical but harrowing picture of the weaknesses in social foundations and the fragility of all government. The country the movie is set in is unspecified although it clearly seems to be Italy. Yet the film is unspecific enough to represent any nation portrayed as being on the brink of anarchy. The eerie opening is set in Palermo's Convento dei Cappuccini with its crypt of 8000 bodies, some mummified, some rotting in subterranean corridors. Rosi turns those images into a horrific metaphor of political and social transience that are the themes of this movie. In the final sequence, oceans of banner-waving Communists are cut with noisily revving tanks being readied for a rightist takeover of power. One should observe that Rosi's left-wing political biases admit only of right-wing coups as being ominous. Nevertheless, it is an unsettling finale to a remarkable and unsettling film.

Unlike earlier reviews, I watched "Illustrious Corpses" from the recent Blu-ray release of this movie, which was made using a 4K scan of the two best preservation prints available.

Assuming the blu-ray distributor, KL Studio Classics, did a good job in manufacturing this disc from the 4K scan digital file, this movie as originally filmed is a technical disaster. The cinematography is all over the place, lacking sharpness through much of the movie. The scenes at the end by the museum staircase are murky as all get out. "Illustrious Corpses" looks like a low budget movie. Where the image is clear, it often has the flat lighting of an old television series. Maybe cinematographer Pasqualino De Santis filmed most interior sets dark to hide their cheapness. But why was star Lino Ventura filmed so badly? Ventura's "face was his fortune," but you couldn't say that from this movie. In 1975's "The French Detective," Lino Ventura also starred as a police inspector who also goes against a corrupt political system. Then, Ventura's character is investigating the murders of a fellow cop and a political campaign worker. Ventura looked younger and had a real personality in the 1975 movie, shown when he talks about lamb stew with his partner.

"Illustrious Corpses" is a long, drawn out movie that goes nowhere. The chief murder suspect of the judges, Cres the chemist, is never seen. Even photos including him have his face cut out. The police mug shot card for Cres is missing his photo. What does this all mean? Your guess. In this movie, the Italian government must be on as tight a budget as this movie's director, Francesco Rosi. Ventura's detective, Amerigo Rogas, often takes long bus rides instead of driving during his investigation. I still can't figure out why the targeted judges were not put in protective custody. Rogas, not a political figure, gets a secret meeting with the head of the Communist Party in Italy (who doesn't use a bodyguard even though there are riots in the street) through the intercession of an old friend who is a top party member. How insane is that?

The American distributor, United Artists, never gave this movie much of a release in the United States. UA wasn't throwing good money after bad. For all of the detective's investigating, he proves little and accomplishes nothing. Considering the general incompetence most people assign to civil service employees, that end result is realistic. I still can't get over how the blind man sitting on a park bench had his German shepherd guide dog trained so it could go over to where Rogas was having a confidential conversation, stop and then stay there as the mini radio microphone around the dog's neck transmitted the conversation to the Chief Judge in his office a distance away.

I'll stop here.

Am a fan of foreign cinema and wanted to finally see more of Francesco Rosi's films, having loved his film version of 'Carmen' for years. That became one of my favourite opera films after seeing it for the first time at a relatively young age getting into opera and still is, it's actually even better now with the few things that didn't quite do it for me on my very first viewing, like the opening, not being issues.

Enough of talking about that film and lets talk about his 'Cadaveri Excellenti' ('Illustrious Corpses'). Was expecting great things after hearing a lot of positive things about it and was not let down, it deserves every good thing that has been said about it and deserves to be better known and accessibly. Am a subjective person but that 'Illustrious Corpses' was not available on DVD for a while and is to this day still underseen is inexplicable, when films nowhere near as good and in some cases not good films not only have wider coverage and highly marketed but are shown on television far more and are popular on DVD.

Talking now about 'Illustrious Corpses' as a film, it looks wonderful with some of the most strikingly beautiful and atmosphere-filled cinematography of any Italian film that doesn't have Federico Fellini's name on it. Some of it makes for many beautiful and at times nightmarish imagery, the mummified bodies will give one the creeps. The locations are also cleverly used and have both exquisite allure and stark atmosphere (apologies for throwing around this word a lot, it is hard not to when it is to me a crucial element of a film and should be mentioned). The music is haunting and has presence, whether understated or more bold, without being too loud.

'Illustrious Corpses' is intelligently written and thought-provoking, thematically it is bold and brutally honest yet human. Its depiction of Italian politics may not be innovative as such but was, and still is, honest and really quite daring (in a way that nobody expects) for back then. The story is deliberate in pace yet to me was transfixing, with a slow burning tension to the thriller/mystery parts sustained brilliantly with nothing being what it seems and .

The opening sequence is one of the best beginnings of any film seen recently, and perhaps ever, not just in how incredibly shot but also the emotion and chills one feels watching it. Even more striking is the shocking and really quite powerful ending that ends not in a way one expects, some may not like it but for me that it didn't end conveniently, predictably or less downbeat was actually appreciated and it did not jar tonally like those potentially would. There is suspense and there is nothing given away too early, one is kept guessing throughout with not much to help us. The killings are unlenting and the characters compellingly real with a lead character written with such honesty that it makes the outcome even sadder.

Rosi directs exceptionally with impeccable style and sense of mood and gets the best out of his cast. Lino Ventura is in the lead role and smoulders unforgettably on screen, giving a performance of magisterial and brooding intensity. It is a performance that has garnered comparisons as being the Italian Robert Mitchum or Humphrey Bogart and one can see why. The other standout is Max Von Sydow, an actor so consistently great that it would have been very hard to get a bad performance out of him. A bad performance this is nowhere near close to being, instead it is repellent unrepentance at its most chilling yet nuanced, it is a masterclass of saying a lot without always saying much or anything and Von Sydow always was a master at this.

Concluding, superb film and deserves far more credit. 10/10 Bethany Cox

I managed to see this at a film society showing about 25 (oh, help!) years ago. I have never forgotten the air of menace and foreboding it generates as Lino Ventura (a great performance) doggedly pursues his case among the great and the good. An air of strangeness, too, such as the strange rumbling noises Ventura hears when he moves to his anonymous new apartment complex.

This is a film I would dearly love to see again but for the last quarter of a century (makes a girl think) nothing, nada, zip! I doubt whether the current controller of the Italian media will be interested in releasing a film about political conspiracy for public consumption but I wish someone would. This is a film which deserves to be seen and to be appreciated much more widely.

Judges are being murdered. Veteran police Inspector Amerigo Rogas is assigned the case. The Chief of Police is pushing the theory of the crazy lone gunman.

This is an Italian police drama. It's a somewhat slow moving movie. The lead is rather stoic. He's old school. The filmmaker is using some epic backdrops to accentuate the surreal grandeur of this story. Slowly, the movie turns into The Conversation. It's a lot slightly-off characters and random detours. There are red herrings and off centered clue reveals. More and more, the movie turns into 70's paranoid. I want more charisma from the lead character. He needs to show his descend into paranoia drama. This is very interesting but it does feel stretched out at two hours.

Does anyone know why this isn't on DVD?

Rosi always gives good opening sequences (see his "Carmen") and this one is the best.

This is the political thriller that should be listed even above those of Costa Gravas or The Manchurian Candidate, but is virtually unknown in America. When I saw it at an Italian film class in the late 90's not even the professor had actually seen it - ( though I had).

Rescreening this 1976 film in today's political/terror climate gives this film even more resonance.

Lino Ventura is the moral center of this unblinking look at Italian politics. He has the kind of "gravitas" of Bogart at his best. If you have any way of seeing this film, you won't be sorry.

If you enjoy it, check out Rosi's "Tre Fratelli" and Ricky Tognazzi's "L'Escorta" with similar subject matter.

FYI, Rosi (Dir) was an assistant to Visconti.

Really good story developmen at the beginning, it's a shame that it gets sloppy at the end.

"Cadaveri Eccelenti" is an intelligent thriller which incites viewers to find out the truth about the motives behind some senseless killings.It does not give easy clues to viewers to ascertain the identity of the killer.This is why viewers are somewhat forced to guess till the very end about the real identity of the killer.Francesco Rosi has shot "Cadaveri Eccelenti" in a very formal manner in which it is hard to tell whether some influential people are behind the political killings or are they the brainchild of a lunatic who is determined to take revenge on judges who punished him for no fault ? The political milieu depicted in the film appears to be true as well as close to reality as one watches with interest how phones are tapped,conversations of key persons recorded and influential politicians rub shoulders with their business associates.The saddest thing about the film is its depiction of how an honest police man is defeated.It forms an integral part of a surprising end which might be a little disappointing for some. However,it can be accepted solely for being highly unpredictable.

An interesting crime story from Italy, made with a realistic feel and a focus on the intellect rather than the senses. The excellent Lino Ventura plays a tired detective called in to investigate when some supreme court judges are being murdered, and in doing so he uncovers a conspiracy. A good cast do their bit here, including screen favourites like Luigi Pistilli and Max von Sydow, and the direction has a veneer of quality.

What more can be said? This is one of the finest examples of Italian cinema I have seen. Gripping, intense and thought provoking. Not to mention fantastically acted, directed, edited, shot and produced.

The story revolves around Lino Ventura, Italy's No.1 homicide detective. He is called in onto the case of an assassinated judge and has to piece it together. As the movie proceeds more judges are killed by an unknown party....

What makes this movie shine more than anything is the plot, it's thicker than cement. When you think you have your finger pointed in the right direction, something else pops up and leads you in yet another direction... FANTASTIC!!!

The opening sequence and what follows are breathtaking -- every frame a jewel, and the messaging completely in sync with what Italy was going though during in the anni di piombo, the years during which life was controlled by the Christian Democratic party, the Mafia and the Catholic Church and when everyone else who mattered was more or less on the take.

Based on a novel by Leonardo Sciascia, the Sicilian bard of those years, the early sequence actually has the feel of a Simenon novel -- crimes are being committed, judges are being shot, and the best detective in Italy is being sent to investigate, landing in Sicily (unnamed, but clearly identified) as on a remote planet, The detective is played by the tremendous Italo-French actor Lino Ventura (who appears in just about any French film noir of the 60s and 70s that you can think of), whose face (like so many in this face-focused film) is almost a novel in itself. Nobody does faces like Francesco Rosi, and what faces he has to work with here, including not just Ventura's, but Fernando Ray's, Max von Sydow's, and many others that are at least as compelling, if not as instantly recognizable.

So for the first two-thirds of the film, the Simenon-like parts, with the Ventura character, Ispettore Rogas, trying, like Commissaire Maigret, to parse an alien environment and figure what's going on, the film is gripping. Then Rogas returns to Rome, and the plot becomes much more confusing. Suddenly we're no longer dealing with the crime Rogas thinks he has pretty much figured out, if not completely solved, but with a huge conspiracy -- we're suddenly thrust into a political thriller, more Costa Gavras than Simenon, and into what seems uncomfortably like agitprop. The Communist party, the hard-line PCI, seems for a time to be the path to salvation, but in the end, not. Youthful protestors seem to offer hope, but the basic message seems to be that the neo-fascists are always there, ready to turn whatever seeming threat they face into an opportunity. Sound familiar? The release is timely, but in the end I found the message kind of muddled.

The 4K restoration is fantastically vivid, but, until the later parts, with its huge crowd scenes, the original material was already brilliant. The English subtitles are incomplete and at times distorting...nothing new there.

The restoration, now showing at NYC's indispensable Film Forum, must be seen, even if it can be frustrating in parts. I assume it will go out on the art-house circuit, and any film lover who can should grab the opportunity, even if that is only through streaming or the DVD that I assume will come out soon if it hasn't already. The first 2/3 will knock your socks off, and maybe it's me only who finds the rest a bit indecipherable. Guess I'll just have to go back and see it again.

The good news first: Cadaveri eccellenti is now out on DVD. Which is how we came to see it again last night. - Second, my own two cents since I've just read the negative comments on the discussion boards, where people are actually wondering if this is the worst movie ever. No way! OK, my own approach to it was an uphill journey. First saw it ages ago because Tre fratelli and Cristo si è fermato a Eboli had impressed me. This one is quite different, and I didn't get a thing. Years later, I stumbled over the story it's based on: "The Context. A parody" by Leonardo Sciascia. Even readers only passingly familiar with Sciascia will realize that the baddies are never caught in his books, reflecting the realities of his native Sicily. Of all the books of his I've read, this one was the toughest, because evil is omnipresent and not identified with individuals. A parody perhaps, but a bitter one, and one he took a long time to finish because writing it distressed him. Rosi read it on a long journey and it hit him like lightning. Like Sciascia, he was interested in the ways power corrupts people. So that's what we have here: a relentless gallery of corrupt officials in every walk of life. Not only in the Mafia but also in the realms of politics, justice, the military and religion. Max von Sydow's character is as repellent as anything I've ever seen. The whole caboodle is not meant to be fully understood, and that's where a large part of that all-pervading sense of menace comes from. The locations are gorgeous - wish I knew where that bus stop was where Rogas watches the procession of high-and-mighties drive by. And those catacombs! Someone here said the location wasn't clearly identified, but given that both Sciascia and Rosi were Italian, and that the film features a map of Sicily rather prominently in one shot, I beg to differ. IMHO this is indeed Sicily. And bella Italia. Berlusconi may look more benign than certain of his predecessors but... oh, all right, all right, this ain't the Speaker's Corner. The rest is silence.

Just a couple of additional points - The first assassination victim is Charles Vanel (Tre Fratelli) but also from Wages of Fear (with Montand) as a far younger man.

The opening sequence as he emerges from the tombs to the killing in a garden is arguably one of the strongest openings to a film ever. Rosi (an AD to Visconti) is known for this, check out his opening sequence to his "Carmen" (Placido Domingo).

On a political note, being a leftist/communist in Italy in the 60s/70s was more accurately being an anti-fascist. Many of the rich claimed to be communists. Lina Wertmuller built a career making fun of this social and political confusion.

Wish Illustrious Corpses were available here on DVD!!!

This is a remarkable film which captures perfectly the greyness, cynicism and violence of the Italian political scene in the 70s and 80s, the 'years of lead' as Italians call them (anni di piombo). The highly script, acting and direction are all top notch and the twists and turns keep you glued to the screen. It really deserves to be better known. The ending is extraordinarily downbeat! No Hollywood feelgood in this one.

Master director, Francesco Rosi deftly helms this compelling, elegantly complex, beautifully stylized paranoid thriller exploring the valiant investigations of experienced Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura). Rogas disturbingly unearths darkly unsettling truths in this confounding case of the execution of high profile judges. Are these simply the crazed actions of a vengeful sniper with a murderous grudge, or, are the assassinations of ageing magistrates part of a sinister political conspiracy of far-reaching consequence?

The paranoid, fascinatingly labyrinthine plot is exciting mounted by Rosi, and one couldn't ask for a finer protagonist in the inimitable, enigmatically crumpled form of the sublimely charismatic Lino Ventura. A truly brilliant actor whose dazzling CV boasts star turns in many of the finest examples of European crime cinema, including some of Jean-Pierre Melville's greatest! His dogged interpretation of Stoic Inspector Rogas might arguably be one of Ventura's most thrilling, and exquisitely nuenced performances. 'Cadaveri Eccellenti' (1976) remains a sharply written, rewardingly complex political thriller of the highest calibre, ranking alongside, Damiani's similarly gripping 'How To Kill a Judge' as one of the 1970s most cogent conspiracy thrillers.

Made in between, Lucky Luciano and the much acclaimed Christ Stopped at Eboli, this is a fabulous, very impressive tale of the power of corruption and paranoia. The wonderful Lino Ventura is spot on as the laconic detective investigating, first the assassination of judges and then to what lies behind. Not everyone is so keen, of course, and as the plot thickens we begin to join up the dots that represent, the church, the judiciary, the mafia and the government. Maybe its all the fault of the hippies and students or maybe the corrupted officials will inadvertently fan that flame. Measured, beautifully photographed and never too explicit, we journey with mr Ventura and just hope he is on the right track. Fantastic opening with long corridor and religious artefacts and mummies that wouldn't look amiss in a Luis Bunuel film leading us to the first brutal killing. Surely a candidate for best film opening ever.

I rarely watch Italian movies. I just don't have the opportunity and time. I found this movie by friend's recommendation . I didn't expected much. Boy , was I wrong ! This is a movie about a detective that is trying to figure out who kills the judges.

It's a great movie . There is a dark atmosphere , but not Hollywood dark atmosphere . It's more of an European pessimistic feeling that covers the whole movie . The mystery is very intriguing and engaging . The pacing is very good . Acting is good too. Not your usual Hollywood type of ending. The death scenes are actually very scary . The movie doesn't say anything original about corruption and politics , but it's still a great movie .

I give it 8/10.

The best work of Francesco Rosi. One of the most thought provoking political thrillers that is even better than Costa-Gavras' "Z." There is a killing sequence (of the von Sydow character) where Rosi has evidently been influenced by Visconti's "Conversation piece" (74) opening credit sequence (death of the Lancaster character).

It is hardly surprising that an uncompromising social crusader such as Francesco Rosi should be drawn to the novel 'Il Contesto' by political activist and former member of the Italian Communist Party Leonardo Sciascia.

Rosi has been described as a journalist with a camera and here we have a film which reflects the political climate of Italy in the 1970's, since referred to as 'years of lead', in the form of a first class thriller.

Although slowly paced it is intensely charged and has an all-pervading Paranoia whilst Rosi and his cinematographer Pasquale de Santis have made the landscape and architecture active participants in the plot.

Rosi regulars Tonino Guerra and Lino Iannuzi have written the screenplay which is interpreted by a cast out of the top draw. Lino Ventura is detective Rogas who has in effect signed his own death warrant by stumbling cross a state conspiracy designed to discredit the extreme Left. Ventura is capable of conveying great inner strength which makes his increasing dread all the more convincing. Perfectly cast is Fernando Rey as the glib and eminently plausible Minister for Security who likens himself to an umpire who both threatens and protects. Tino Carraro is positively Machiavellian as a Chief of Police whilst Charles Vanel, Alain Cuny and Max von Sydow bring their powerful presence to bear as a trio of particularly terrifying purveyors of Justice. Von Sydow's pronouncement that 'judicial error doesn't exist' and his subsequent fascist rant is a real show stopper. Cuny is as unnerving here as he was as General Leone in Rosi's 'Uomini contro' and Vanel played his final role as Donato in Rosi's 'Tre Fratelli'. In the small role of a street walker young Tina Aumont makes quite an impression.

Contoversial when first released it was criticised for its depiction of Left wing politicians' inertia in the face of Government corruption. 'The truth is not always revolutionary', a line spoken in the film's last minutes by a Communist, was guaranteed to rattle a few cages.

Political power and its abuses have proved an endless source of fascination to film-makers and film goers not least because, in the words of film historian Peter Cowie: 'Power is an abstract evil and as such is inscrutable.'