The Facts of Murder

The disc boutique Radiance has been tapping exactly the European cinema we’ve been missing, the high quality mid-range titles that didn’t aspire to the art pantheon. The last winner we covered was Le combat dans L’ile, in November.

In addition to some choice Japanese titles and rare horror both American and  Italian, Radiance just released a vintage Italian murder story. Critics Paul A.J. Lewis, Mario Sesti and Roberto Curti note that the early hardboiled police tale may also be a proto- Giallo. Italian censors of the late 1950s were allowing more latitude in what could be depicted about social situations and even public institutions. Michelangelo Antonioni’s earlier hits Cronaca di un amore and  Le amiche touch on sordid situations, yet are careful to maintain a sense of propriety . . . the miscreants are exceptional individuals.

“Who can say?  It’s like when you lift a stone and find worms underneath.”

The worldview is different in Pietro Germi’s The Facts of Murder, which had to wait until 1965 for even a token U.S. release. The original title Un maledetto imbroglio literally translates as A Damn Scam, although A Damned Mess feels more accurate. The first image is a beautiful fountain in the Piazza Farnese, accompanied by a romantic song (written by Germi and composer Carlo Rustichelli). An odd burglary investigation leads a non-nonsense police investigator (played by director Germi) to one sordid discovery after another. Rome is a sunny, busy city — with an ugly story around every corner.

A big hook for more casual viewers will be actress Claudia Cardinale. She would make her international splash in 1963’s The Pink Panther, but by 1959 was already a well-known major attraction in Europe. She’s drop-dead gorgeous, but also convinces as a modest working woman from a poor background. Fans of Euro-noir need no persuasion — the Roman setting of Germi’s film fascinates as much as the Paris of Jacques Becker’s Touchez pas au Grisbi.

No-spoilers here. The murder of a well-to-do woman may have a connection with a recent daylight burglary in the apartment next door. The investigation leads Ispettore Ingravallo (Pietro Germi) and his ‘flying squad’ down multiple paths, only to be blocked by ostensibly law-abiding citizens hiding sordid activity both immoral and illegal. The art collector Anzaloni (Ildebrando Santafe) associates with young street hustlers. Ingravallo suspects the murder victim’s maid Assuntina (Claudia Cardinale) and her handsome fiancé Diomedes (Nino Castelnuovo of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), an under-employed electrician, because they have access to both apartments.

Two men closely associated with the murder victim withhold information, forcing Ingravallo’s investigators to drag out the truth in drips and drabs. Doctor Massimo Valdarema (Franco Fabrizi of I Knew Her Well and  Le amiche) was receiving suspicious payments from the victim. Her estranged husband Remo Banducci (Claudio Gora of Diabolik) seems completely in the clear, but Ingravallo only has to scratch the surface to find inconsistencies in his story as well. Banducci becomes suspect number one when a new will surfaces — which cuts him out of his wife’s substantial estate.

The secret relationships unfold, revealing interlocking stories and telling details about police work in Rome. A crazy old neighbor fired an unregistered gun during the burglary, but the cops let it slide because he’s a retired army general. A professional is revealed as a fraud who promotes prostitution behind a bogus health clinic. He’s also a specialist in personal blackmail. We sympathize with a marriage that reportedly soured because of the wife’s failed pregnancies — and then discover that the husband blew everything up with a tawdry sex affair, right under his wife’s nose.

Other suspects include an athlete and a musician who sings Arrivederci Roma for tourists — both of whom are after-hours burglars. A clean-cut young man doesn’t tell his sweetheart that he works as a gigolo to earn extra money. Ingravallo must question a wealthy American matron, who threatens to bring the U.S. Embassy down on his neck.

The masculine ideal, both authoritative and chivalrous.

Inspector Ingravallo is the old-fashioned kind of bull male who sizes up situations partly by intuition, chomping his cigar and encouraging his interviewees to open up. He also gets rough when intimidation is needed, as when he pressures the murder victim’s former maid Virginia (fourth-billed Cristina Gaioni of Flesh for Frankenstein). Ingravallo works around the clock, which doesn’t please his unseen girlfriend Paola. He’s gracious and respectful to a quiet & dignified witness to the burglary. Liliana (Eleanora Rossi Drago of Estate violenta and  Camille 2000) wins Ingravallo’s sympathy, and maybe his heart as well.

The inspector is more accustomed to weighing the transparent lies of troublemakers. His flying squad is incorruptible. The team barges in on culprits at all hours of the day and night, hoping to catch them off guard. They’re efficient but also tactful and law-abiding. No comedic sidekick emerges, but Ingravallo’s amusing main marshall (Saro Urzi) comes close. He’s always broadcasting who he suspects most. Whenever he’s not in motion, he pulls a sandwich out of his pocket and chows down.

Filmmaker Pietro Germi often acted in his pictures; his success didn’t translate to name recognition in the U.S., even after his art film comedies Seduced and Abandoned,  The Birds, The Bees and the Italians, and Divorce Italian Style, which won Germi a co-screenplay Best Writing Oscar, and a nomination for Best Director.

We easily see the qualities that brought Germi to the attention of the Motion Picture Academy. The Facts of Murder captures ‘Roman life in motion’ with great skill. It has a neo-realist attention to detail, some of which likely did little to cheer up Italian tourism officials. The Roman equivalent of Rednecks are vulgar and resentful of authority. The flying squad’s detectives know many of the prostitutes by name, such as ‘Camilla the Bedouin’ (Loretta Capitoli). Seeking information, the cops take over a small bar in ‘the outskirts,’ where they witness two Romanas fighting like cats. One pulls out her false teeth to boast that their shared lover spends more money on her.

The Letter of the Law doesn’t pretend to fully cover Right and Wrong.

We understand the historians’ explanation that the tone of Italian films was rapidly changing at this time. Just as in America, filmmakers felt less pressure to reinforce the illusion that peace and decency is society’s baseline default, that criminals are rare aberrations. Two of the suspects are incredibly guilty, yet their offenses are personal betrayals not covered by the criminal code. The most Ingravallo can do is to slap them, hard, just to let them know they’re not fooling anybody. He can’t obtain confessions through beatings, but he apparently is allowed some latitude.

The Facts of Murder isn’t paranoid or overly sensationalistic, but it does present society as a tangle of liars, cheats and thieves, a ‘damned mess’ where slimeballs like Valdarema find ways to cheat everyone they know, and where foolish underdogs like Assuntina and Diomedes suffer. Germi ends his show with an ironic symmetry, repeating the opening love song over a regrettable arrest in the harsh light of day. The truth is established and the criminal caught, but the answers found bring nobody happiness.

The film feels so original that we’re taken aback by one of its final shots, that resembles a timeless image from Rossellini’s Roma, città aperta. Is Pietro Germi comparing Ingravallo’s lawful arrest to a heartless act by the German occupiers during the war?