I keep getting pulled into these film adaptations of Leonardo Sciascia's novels and I never cease to wonder at their fine quality. Sciascia was an Italian novelist from Sicily, famous for being one of the first writers to openly write about the Mafia, a subject that in the early '60s was still prickly, in fact many still denied the Mafia existed when The Day of the Owl was published in 1961. Today this criminal organization is an incontrovertible fact, which perhaps affects the impact this film adaptation has on modern viewers.
I would still heartily recommend this movie to fans of the crime genre on the simple fact it remains a gripping and well-written crime drama. Franco Nero plays Bellodi, a police captain recently transferred to Sicily, where he's slowly learning the ropes. Full of new ideas and a passionate attitude, he tries to rip the veil of silence that covers Mafia hits when the owner of a construction company shows up murdered. As always everyone denies having seen anything. His only possible witness is a man who lives in a house nearby the murder scene; but he's nowhere to be found, and his wife, Rosa (played by Claudia Cardinale), doesn't know where he's gone to.
Bellodi not only has to investigate a murder that leads to one of the most important men in the town, Don Marino (played by Lee J. Cobb), the local Mafia don, but he also has to untangle the truth from the lies surrounding the case, since the Mafia tries to hide the true motives of the murder by making it look like a crime of passion involving Rosa, the victim and Rosa's wayward husband – in that society honour can be conveniently used to cover up all crimes.
Nero, Cardinale and Cobb are excellent, and the other actors, mainly unknown Italian actors, do a great job bringing the movie to life too. The movie doesn't have a boring moment, and the intellectual conflict between Bellodi and Don Mariano is gripping. The movie, being one of the first ones to tackle the Mafia, uses many tropes that since then have become trademarks of the genre – the cop willing to bend the rules a little for justice, for instance, but more importantly the sense that the Mafia is an unbeatable opponent, too rich and powerful ever to be brought down. Compared to American movies, this one is quite pessimistic, but then again the Mafia in America is not half as chilling as it is in Italy and Sicily.
I would still heartily recommend this movie to fans of the crime genre on the simple fact it remains a gripping and well-written crime drama. Franco Nero plays Bellodi, a police captain recently transferred to Sicily, where he's slowly learning the ropes. Full of new ideas and a passionate attitude, he tries to rip the veil of silence that covers Mafia hits when the owner of a construction company shows up murdered. As always everyone denies having seen anything. His only possible witness is a man who lives in a house nearby the murder scene; but he's nowhere to be found, and his wife, Rosa (played by Claudia Cardinale), doesn't know where he's gone to.
Bellodi not only has to investigate a murder that leads to one of the most important men in the town, Don Marino (played by Lee J. Cobb), the local Mafia don, but he also has to untangle the truth from the lies surrounding the case, since the Mafia tries to hide the true motives of the murder by making it look like a crime of passion involving Rosa, the victim and Rosa's wayward husband – in that society honour can be conveniently used to cover up all crimes.
Nero, Cardinale and Cobb are excellent, and the other actors, mainly unknown Italian actors, do a great job bringing the movie to life too. The movie doesn't have a boring moment, and the intellectual conflict between Bellodi and Don Mariano is gripping. The movie, being one of the first ones to tackle the Mafia, uses many tropes that since then have become trademarks of the genre – the cop willing to bend the rules a little for justice, for instance, but more importantly the sense that the Mafia is an unbeatable opponent, too rich and powerful ever to be brought down. Compared to American movies, this one is quite pessimistic, but then again the Mafia in America is not half as chilling as it is in Italy and Sicily.