Cadaveri eccellenti - Illustrious Corpses (Film 1976)

llustrious Corpses (Italian: Cadaveri eccellenti) is a 1976 Italian-French thriller film directed by Francesco Rosi and starring Lino Ventura, based on the novel Equal Danger (Italian title: Il contesto) by Leonardo Sciascia (1971). Audio in Italian with English subtitles.

The film starts with the murder of Investigating Judge Vargas in Palermo, amongst a climate of demonstrations, strikes and political tension between the Left and the Christian Democratic government. The subsequent investigation failing, the police assign Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura), a man with a firm faith in the integrity of the judiciary, to solve the case. While he is starting his investigation, two judges are killed. All victims turn out to have worked together on several cases.

Its title refers to the surrealist game, Cadavre Exquis, invented by André Breton, in which the participants draw consecutive sections of a figure without seeing what the previous person has drawn, leading to unpredictable results, and is meant to describe the meandering nature of the film with its unpredictable foray into the world of political manipulations, as well as the ("illustrous") corpses of the murdered judges.

The film triggered a lot of controversy at its release, especially for the joke pronounced in the last part of the film by the communist party secretary "Truth is not always revolutionary", which is used by Rosi to denote the silence of the opposition to the prevailing and much often unpunished corruption.

Cast & Characters:
Lino Ventura as Inspector Amerigo Rogas
Tino Carraro as Chief of Police
Marcel Bozzuffi as The lazy
Paolo Bonacelli as Dr. Maxia
Alain Cuny as Judge Rasto
Maria Carta as Madame Cres
Luigi Pistilli as Cusan
Tina Aumont as The prostitute
Renato Salvatori as Police Commissary
Paolo Graziosi as Galano
Anna Proclemer as Nocio's wife
Fernando Rey as Security Minister
Max von Sydow as Supreme Court president
Charles Vanel as Varga