‘Why are you wearing that damn hat?’
When the teenage daughter of a prominent surgeon goes missing, police in Rome throw a dragnet across the city. Eventually, her dead body is found in a lake on the outskirts, and the coroner establishes that she was shot in the back…
Police procedural with a touch of the Giallo from director Mario Caiano. Antonio Sabato and Luciana Paluzzi lead the investigation under the watchful eye of police chief Enrico Maria Salerno.
It seems like just another ordinary evening for well-connected surgeon Professore Andrea Icardi (Gabriele Ferzetti) when he gets home from his private clinic. Wife Emilia (Bedy Moratti) is out playing cards with friends and daughter Fiorella (Adriana Falco) has a study date with a schoolfriend. However, he gets worried when Moratti returns, but Falco is overdue. A quick telephone call establishes that the study date was pure fiction and she is missing. Using his influence with a local Senator, Ferzetti gets the situation straight to the desk of Police Chief Carraro (Salerno), and a city-wide search begins.
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Unfortunately, tracker dogs find her body in a remote lake on the outskirts of the city. She’s been murdered, and Salerno assigns chief investigators Commissario Fernando Solmi (Sabato) and Ispettrice Giovanna Nunziante (Paluzzi) to the case. The autopsy reveals that the victim was no longer a virgin and pregnant as well, providing the killer with a probable motive. The investigators turn their attention to Ferzetti’s social circle, convinced that she knew her killer. However, they also discover that some of her school friends are involved in a teenage prostitution racket whose clients include some of the most prominent men in the city. Salerno comes under pressure to close the case quickly by pinning the killing on Enrico Tummoli (Ettore Manni), a peeping tom who runs a restaurant by the lake.
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After a highly successful run in the early 1970s, the popularity of the Giallo thriller was fading by the middle of the decade, increasingly eclipsed by the rising stock of Italian crime films known collectively as Poliziotteschi. The suspense and horrors of a whodunnit murder mystery were suddenly taking a back seat to heists, shootouts and car chases, which often pitted the authorities against organised crime with political connections. Such projects also proved popular on the small screen with shows such as ‘Qui squadra mobile’ which ran from 1973 to 1976. Writers on that show included Massimo Felisatti and Fabio Pittorru, who originated the screenplay for this film. They even used the two principal investigators from the TV show, although the roles were recast with Sabato and Paluzzi, presumably for their box office clout.
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However, the most notable fact is that the plot bares more than a slight resemblance to the far superior ‘What Have They Done To Your Daughters?/La polizia chiede aiuto’ (1974), a film that also revolved around high political figures involved with organised schoolgirl prostitution. It’s unfortunate that Caiano’s film arrived so hot on the heels of its predecessor because it makes comparisons inevitable, and his effort comes off as a poor second-best. Clearly, he was aiming for a grounded, almost documentary feel, but the results are flat and unengaging. This also may have resulted from having writers used to working for the small screen as their combined efforts seem to have little ambition.
On the one hand, it’s refreshing that these cops are ordinary working joes, interviewing witnesses, chasing down commonplace leads, and pounding the pavements for clues rather than displaying great leaps in logic or sudden, blinding insights. The absence of any private life soap opera theatrics in their backgrounds is also very welcome. However, this leaves the cast struggling to build engaging performances when all they are required to do is react to events in their official capacities. This may have been quite the disappointment for Paluzzi, who was probably relieved to get a change of pace from the femme fatales and glamour girls she’d been playing throughout much of her career. Unfortunately, her character ultimately proves to be rather peripheral to the action and disappears almost entirely from the second half of the film.
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So, what’s left to discuss if both mystery and characters lack colour? Well, Caiano is able to put across some notion of the corrupt political machine pulling strings from high places, although a lot of that is down to Salerno. He gives the film’s best performance as the conflicted police chief, under pressure to resolve the case without embarrassing the establishment. On more than one occasion, he tries to convince Sabato to accept a convenient solution but can’t quite bring himself to insist on it. The social commentary is also a strength, particularly in the opening act. Although Moratti is clearly an absent wife and mother, Ferzetti believes himself fully engaged in parenthood, boasting of a close relationship with his daughter that has full disclosure. This is quickly exposed as totally delusional when Falco’s long-running physical relationship with her likely killer comes to light. There’s no time to explore this aspect of the drama at any length as the investigation takes precedence, but it’s effective and provides Ferzetti with a couple of good dramatic moments.
The Giallo elements arrive late in the story as the killer starts trying to cover his tracks when the police get too close for comfort. In the spirit of a grounded drama, there is nothing extravagant about these subsequent murders. However, there are a couple of gory moments, particularly the death of the gynaecologist played by familiar face Franco Ressel. The reveal of the killer’s identity is resolutely undramatic, and there are no twists to the tale, but that’s only in keeping with the nature of the presentation. Crime can be predictable and strangely mundane, after all.
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Caiano was the son of film producer Carlo Caiano and began his apprenticeship in the industry while simultaneously studying in college. His first recognised credits were as a second assistant director in the 1950s, where he worked for directors such as Riccardo Freda on ‘Da qui all’eredità’ (1955), Edgar G Ulmer on ‘Journey Beneath the Desert/Antinea, l’amante della città sepolta’ (1961) and many times for Sergio Grieco. He debuted as a director in his own right on the surprisingly enjoyable ‘Ulysses Against Hercules/Ulisse contro Ercole/Ulysses vs Hercules (1962), tackled horror with Barbara Steele in ‘Nightmare Castle/Amanti d’oltretomba/The Faceless Monster (1965) and the world of the Eurospy with ‘Spies Strike Silently/Le Spie Uccidono In Silenzio (1966). His other flirtation with the Giallo was the solid entry ‘Eye in the Labyrinth/L’occhio nel labirinto (1972) and he made many Spaghetti Westerns of which ‘Ride and Kill/Brandy/Cavalca e uccidi’ (1964) and ‘A Coffin for the Sheriff/Una bara per lo sceriffo/Lone and Angry Man’ (1965) are worth seeking out.
An efficient production but little to write home about.