cinema obscura: Petri's precient "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion" (1970)

It's high time for a major revival of Elio Petri's compelling 1970 policier, "Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion" ("Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto"), a film whose adline read, "When you're a big man in the big city, can you get away with murder?" In fact, it's long overdue.

Or perhaps a remake. There was a time, a few years ago, when Al Pacino was reportedly interested in doing an American version of Petri's precient film, taking on the role so memorably played by Gian Maria Volontè.

The great Volontè essays an indelible character - an arrogant homicide detective known only as Il Dottore (The Doctor) who, for a lark, murders his mistress, played by the splendid Florinda Bolkan. This chief of detectives is a bully whose only motive is to prove that he can do it and get away with it, even though he deliberately (and wittily) plants an array of clues that incriminates him, and only him, for the cold-hearted, senseless crime.

Il Dottore was something of a singular character back in 1970 but since then, bullies of his magnitude have become more prevalent in the new millenium, disturbingly ubiquitous, and society not only tolerates them but, for some bizarre reason, seems to celebrate and reward them - and in huge ways.

An apt mantra for 2017 would be "Getting Away With It."

That's the new status symbol among the rich and famous and, like Volontè's indelible Il Dottore, the rich and famous flaunt their disregard for the law and even common decency. They deliberately plant clues, a la Petri's film, that exist only to be blithely ignored by the rest of us.

Making us complicit in their obscene behavior.

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~images~

~top: Gian Maria Volontè as Il Dottore

~middle: Florinda Bolkan

~bottom: Volontè and Bolkan

~photography: Euro International Films and Columbia Pictures 1970 ©