LGM Film Club, Part 491: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to revisit one of my all-time favorite films, Elio Petri’s 1970 classic Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion in the age of Trump. But I am glad I did. If you haven’t seen this, you really should, as it’s a great, if depressing examination of current America as much as the Italy of this era. Gian Maria Volonte (who use probably know as Indio in For a Few Dollars More, but who actually was a great actor) plays a leading Italian cop who is also a complete fascist, ranting about order and eliminating the scum in society. He gets the attention of a woman who is played as an absolute degenerate, a hippie who also has sexual fantasies about power. She cold calls him, he comes over, they role play horrible murders he’s investigated, until he finally kills her. The death is the beginning of the film, the rest comes later, so I’m not really giving too much away. But he wants to be caught. He leaves so many clues and then when the cops won’t bite, he just leads them there. Will they arrest him? Or is he in fact unarrestable because he’s too high up and so it would impact too many rich and powerful people if one of their own brutally murdered a young woman?

The answer, I am afraid to tell you, has a lot to do with Donald Trump theoretically killing someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight.

The film might be the very best ever made, or that I’ve ever seen, into the psychology of fascism and all those who benefit from it. Plus it has a typically great Ennio Morricone score.