We Still Kill the Old Way

This is a good, solid, beautifully photographed crime thriller. My misfortune was to pick this film to watch the night after watching, Illustrious Corpses. Now that Italian political crime thriller made in 1976 and based upon a book by Leonardo Sciascia is a near faultless classic with deep undertones and a broad scope that is simply a joy to watch. This, it turns out, is another film based upon another book by Leonardo Sciascia from 1967. How much more sensible it would have been to watch this one first. The thing is there is nothing wrong with this film except it is also about too easily explained killings that the lead character sets out to investigate and in the process overturns a hornets' nest, but there is much less action, intrigue and politics. Gian Maria Velonte is excellent as the professor who takes it upon himself to get involved when most people seem not to care. Interestingly this was the film that helped to lift this actor into more 'serious' films, after having made many spaghetti westerns, one of the last being face to Face also from 1967 when he also played a professor.

Paolo Laurana is a kind of leftist intellectual who chances to be intrigued by a mysterious double murder in the Sicily of mid Sixties. In his personal detection for murder's instigators, he will run into a plot in which both politicians and mafia racketeers are involved. So curiosity will become a very dangerous affair. Taken from a novel by Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989), A ciascuno il suo (1967) is a film where high rank acting is at its top. Cast (Gianmaria Volonté, Irene Papas, Gabriele Ferzetti, Salvo Randone, Luigi Pistilli. Mario Scaccia, Leopoldo Trieste) is perfect and well-combined, direction (Elio Petri, 1929-1982) is powerful and impressive. If compared to the novel, Elio Petri's film (written with Ugo Pirro) may seem short of that illuministic pessimism that breathes through Sciascia's books, but Laurana's rationalistic search for truth retains that `bitter taste of intelligence' which is one of the major feature of Sciascia's characters. A key film to understand historical condition of Italy in the Sixties.

At the beginning of the movie a pharmacist receives an anonymous letter that threatens him of death. And the murder actually happens. Seems very simple but nothing is what it seems and the journey to the truth will be long and difficult. The book is excellent and the movie is at par with it and very faithful to the romance. Great direction. Incredible cast with Gabriele Ferzetti in his best interpretation together with the one in "C'era una volta il West" and Gianmaria Volonté simply beyond reach as always. Many other great actors. Yes I am an enthusiast 'cause there's not a word or a shot out of place in this movie and the plot is ingenious. Who is going to see this film for the first time will be taken away by the developments (the pace seems to be calm but looking in between the kinks you may realize that many things are going rapidly on). Trying to figure out what is the kernel of the happenings and the "reasons" for the murder is a very interesting exercise but it's highly unlikely for the spectator not to experience a big surprise at the end. In my opinion Elio Petri at his best (I mean at the same level of his other masterwork: La classe operaia va in Paradiso).

A left-wing professor stressed by moral doubts (Gian Maria Volonté) has the rather strange idea to try to break the ambiant omerta in order to clear the violent death of two friends, honor issues happening just to conceal quite more material interests. But Sicily and its little folk of mute but watchful characters don't seem ready to accept this kind of trouble. Bound with beauty but ungraspable like the doctor's few disconsolate widow (Irene Papas), the island and its stifling sun know how to subdue the one who dares to upset their immutably established order, between a conspicuous church and an invisible mafia.

This marks the first collaboration between director Elio Petri, writer Ugo Pirro and actor Gian Maria Volonte which was to bear fruit in the extraordinary 'Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto' and is loosely adapted from the novel by Leonardo Scascia who was again to provide the source material for Rosi's stupendous 'Cadaveri Eccellenti'.

Scascia's novel was inspired by the assassination of a policeman by the Mafia and here Petri and his cinematographer Luigi Kuveiiller have created a striking contrast between the ravishing Sicilian scenery and the all-pervading corruption although there is perhaps a little too much use made of the 'zoom'.

Excellent script and taut editing with strong performances from Volonte, Gabriele Ferzetti, both of whom were awarded Silver Ribbons, the striking Irene Papas whose role does not really do justice to her talents and a marvellous cameo by Petri regular Salvo Randone as a blind oculist!

Petri's customary Left-leaning social criticism is in evidence here but what should have been a top class film is alas, for this viewer at any rate, weakened by imperfect post-synchronisation and some distinctly dodgy dubbing. The genius of Ennio Morricone is conspicuous by its absence here as the score by Luis Bacalov is intrusive, badly integrated and undermines rather than underlines the film's effectiveness.