C'est la loi des siciliens

Italian mafia film with Antonio Sabato and Florinda Bolkan

The Sicilian Rosario Inzulia (Antonio Sabato) had to toil in a quarry with his now deceased friend Pasquale for eight years. The two were innocently sentenced to a long prison sentence. Back in Palermo, Rosario is having a difficult time. His wife is now dead, and there is hardly any normal work for someone like him. Inspector Modica (Silvano Tranquilli) urges him to become a key witness against the machinations of his former colleagues from "respectable society". But Rosario feels tied to his honor. Then the rich building contractor Lo Presti (Peter Carsten) gives him a hand. And in his private life there is also an approach to Rossana (Florinda Bolkan), the widow of his late friend. She would like to emigrate with him, but Rosario still feels tied to the old obligations of Sicilian men of honor. But gradually he realizes what game was being played with him. And what his benefactor Lo Presti has to do with it. Together with the violent Aldo Caponi (Don Backy), he finds out more and more background information. Finally, they kidnap Lo Presti's student son (Massimo Farinelli) and thus challenge the mafia...

With Day of the Black Lemons (translation of the original title), director Camillo Bazzoni has created a thoroughly exciting crime film, but it remains all too superficial in its characterization and social analysis. There is a lot of violence against women again, as was common in many Italian films of those years. The film was never released in West German cinemas. It was shown for the first time on West German private television in September 1989.

The cast is worth seeing! Antonio Sabato (1943-2021) is also known from other gangster films such as "The Mafia Boss" and "Poliziotti violenti". The German actor Peter Carsten (1928-2012) became famous for "08/15" and "Hunde, wollt ihr ewig leben?" known. In Italy he could also be seen alongside Antonio Sabato in the western comedy "Fünf Klumpen Gold". The enchanting Florinda Bolkan (*1941) from Brazil is in real life the sister-in-law of the fashion designer Willy Bogner. And Don Backy (*1939) is not only an Italian singer, but was also one of the stars alongside George Eastman in the slapstick comedy "Prügel, dass die Fetzen fliegen".

After being framed for a crime he didn't commit, being a mob boss, and narrowly avoiding being murdered in prison, I'm unsure why Antonio Sabato thought his wife had died naturally.

Antonio is a 'man of honour' who also runs a legitimate haulage business. When he gets out, he seemingly wants to just get on with life, and blames a certain capo for his predicament while swearing loyalty to another. This proves to be hard as cop Silvano Tranquilli is on his case to spill the beans on Mob life, and it looks like Antonio has just got out of time to stop other gangs taking over his business. This results in a fight where his best mate is capped by the mob and dumped outside of his house. I forgot to mention this film was set in Palermo, and now realise that I probably didn't even need to mention that.

Florinda Balkan is his mate's widow and starts putting the moves on Antonio right away (that's showing good coping skills there Florinda), and while at his mates funeral, someone bumps off a turncoat and Antonio finds he's not the only guy with beef against the Mafia. Looks like a little gang of rebels are forming around him, which is good because Antonio has just found out his wife didn't die in a car crash...

Sabato is quite good here as the raging mobster out for blood while being unable to break his code of honour. Constantly harassed by the cops, harassed by the mob to stop annoying them, and nagged by Florinda to forget it all and leave, Sabato rages against everything and wants vengeance in a world where it's not the best idea to stir up the Mafia. In fact, Sabato is so stubborn the film is ten minutes longer because of it.

I'll be honest, you've seen this plot a good few times, probably. It's well executed however, with the car chases and the machine guns, and the double crosses and such like. I enjoyed it even though it took me three days to watch it because I had to pause the things about six thousand times due to the wife and kids constantly interrupting me. I hate Christmas. Why don't they buy their own presents and leave me to go crazy watching Italian films?