Verdict
Summary
Fans of noir and Italian mysteries would certainly rate this one fairly high, while others might find it a mere curiosity, but one which rewards its viewers with a strong plot, good characterizations, and a compelling mystery.
Plot:
A domestic robbery investigation morphs into a murder investigation.
Review:
A thief takes about a minute to steal what he’s looking for from an apartment in Italy, prompting everyone in the building to point their fingers and shout at him as he scrambles to get away. A police inspector arrives shortly (played by this film’s director Pietro Germi) to investigate and he quickly determines that the thief knew exactly what he was looking for and where to find it, which means he was familiar to the apartment and the owner of the item that was stolen. This should be an easy case to crack, but soon there’s a murder in the same apartment – the woman who lived in the place – and the prime suspect is the woman’s husband, a middle aged man who has an alibi. The inspector’s sleuthing intensifies when the deceased woman’s will (which was recently changed before she died) is read and her husband is completely denied anything, where a nearby church is granted the lion’s share of her considerable estate. Other beneficiaries include her maid (played by a young Claudia Cardinale) whose boyfriend might very well have been the original thief the inspector let go the first time around …
Well directed and seasoned with a gritty film noir-sensibility, The Facts of Murder gets the tone and delivery right, but it easily could’ve been shaved down a little bit, as it feels quite overlong at 115 minutes. The film has a sense of despondency that director Germi infuses through desperate characters that are very well developed, and as the world-weary inspector, Germi does a great job in his delivery. The movie has shades of an early giallo, but I wouldn’t necessarily call it one unless you’re digging really deep in the well where that subgenre really began. Fans of noir and Italian mysteries would certainly rate this one fairly high, while others might find it a mere curiosity, but one which rewards its viewers with a strong plot, good characterizations, and a compelling mystery.
Radiance’s recent release of The Facts of Murder really gives the film the royal treatment on Blu-ray in a limited edition issue. The film’s 4K restoration is crystal clear and sharp, and comes with a heady dose of bonus features.
Bonus Materials
- New 4K restoration of the film by L’Immagine Ritrovata at the Cineteca di Bologna, world premiere on High Definition Blu-ray (1080p)
- Uncompressed mono PCM audio
- New interview with Pietro Germi expert Mario Sesti (2023)
- The Man With the Cigar in His Mouth – a documentary about Pietro Germi featuring interviews with his colleagues and collaborators including Mario Monicelli, Claudia Cardinale, Stefania Sandrelli, Giuseppe Tornatore among others (Mario Sesti, 1997, 41 mins
- What’s Black and Yellow All Over? All Shades of Italian Film Noir – visual essay by Paul A. J. Lewis on the presence of noir trends in Italian cinema and the evolution of the genre (2023)
