We Still Kill the Old Way

Adapted from a novel by Leonardo Sciascia, this is perhaps the least effective of director Elio Petri's collaborations with screenwriter, Ugo Pirro. Less involving than The Working Class Go to Heaven and less ferocious than Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, the film uses a murder mystery to comment on contemporary Italian society from a distinctly left-wing perspective. Gian Maria Volonté gives a typically steady performance as the teacher convinced that two friends have fallen foul of a poison pen campaign. But, Irene Papas overplays the widow for whom he falls, despite her suspicious involvement with a local dignitary.