A ciascuno il suo

Gian Marie Volonte's got himself into some hot water this time! Doesn't he know that in Sicily, if someone gets murdered, you just keep your trap shut and let whoever the police randomly arrest go to jail?

Luigi Pistilli keeps getting letters telling him he's a dead man, and its making him a bit paranoid. Nevertheless, one morning he says goodbye to his wife, then his lover, and sets off with his friend to go hunting, only to find himself the prey. Two corpses later, we've got a bit Sicilian funeral to go to while the police chat about the people attending, including a well-respected lawyer (Gabriele Ferzetti) who's cousin (Irene Papas) was married to one of the victims, and Gian Marie Volonte, a professor friend of the two who starts poking in places that should not be poked.

Pistilli is generally thought to be the target as he was a bit of a fanny rat and some family members are arrested, but they are all illiterate so how could they cobble together those threatening letters. Volonte also finds that the words in the letter were from a Vatican-based newspaper, which leads him to the priesthood. Oh, and a lot of people are related in this film, so one of the priests is the uncle of Papas and Ferzetti.

It's a formula you'll see a lot of in these films, so it's just as well the lead actors are good! Volonte has the hots for the widow Papas and has to basically restrain himself every times he meets her, while Papas kind of has the hots for him too, leading to all kinds of awkward moments. Volonte is very good at the bookish professor who is just too smart and curious for his own good, while Papas just smoulders as the widow.

It looks absolutely scorching hot in Sicily in this film, and just like Damiano Damiani's Day of the Owl, the island itself is a character, with all the strange culture that lives on its land.

The only let down of the film is that the plot is a bit predictable, but it's by no means a bad film.

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.

Goodish blend of Mafia movie (still pretty much uncharted territory at the time) and political thriller, with a hesitant romance thrown in for good measure; the result is generally absorbing, thanks largely to uniformly excellent performances, gleaming location photography (Sicily, of course) and a wonderful score by the ever-reliable Luis Enrique Bacalov. Heading the cast is Gian Maria Volonte': the film launched the political/social conscience phase of his career after a stint doing Spaghetti Westerns. His character is that of an intellectual loner who finds himself in over his head when he starts probing into the assassination of two friends – including philanderer Luigi Pistilli – which leads to his falling for the other's wife (Irene Papas). Though the identity of the villain (as ever, an eminent member of the community and far closer to the hero than he envisaged) comes as no real surprise, the investigation – involving, among other things, the hushed participation of cleric and senator alike – and the disquieting revelations that emerge from it, lends the whole a deeply cynical tone (culminating in the downbeat climax depicting Volonte''s own extreme fate) while cementing the Mafia's reputation as strictly a 'family business'. The Italian DVD includes an interesting half-hour featurette detailing the making and reception of the award-winning film (including the fact that the author of the source novel, Leonardo Sciascia, was dissatisfied with how the script turned out); the interviewees are co-scriptwriter Ugo Pirro, the wife of the late Elio Petri, and composer Bacalov (who is regretful that, given his felicitous working relationship with the director here, the opportunity never arose for another collaboration).

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.

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.