Smiling Maniacs

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Smiling Maniacs
Smiling Maniacs.jpg
Directed by Marcello Aliprandi
Written by Ugo Betti (play)
Marcello Aliprandi
Gianfranco Clerici
Fernando Imbert
Starring Franco Nero
CinematographyGastone Di Giovanni
Music by Pino Donaggio
Release date
  • 1975 (1975)
Country Italy
Language Italian

Smiling Maniacs (Italian : Corruzione al palazzo di giustizia) is a 1975 Italian drama crime film. It stars actor Franco Nero. [1] [2]

Contents

It is an adaptation of the 1949 play by Ugo Betti. [3] The film is sometimes referred to as Bribery in High Places. [4]

Cast

Reception

In a contemporary review, Maurizio Porro  [ it ] described the film as "a work full of good intentions, but torn by a contradiction" which makes it lose its effectiveness, as everything that in the original play was "enblemic, Kafkaesque, not situated in a specific place, in the film becomes concrete denunciation of the current problematics of our [Italian] institutions." [5] Similarly, a La Stampa review noted how the film was "not able to adapt [the original play] in terms of pure symbolism" and turned to be "a bit uncertain in tone (between Betti and a legal giallo, with mandatory elements such as smoke fog, drugs and killers)." [6]

According to film historian Roberto Curti, the film was "rooted in the paranoid atmosphere of the period", an "attempt at making something closer to Elio Petri and Francesco Rosi's political allegories based on Leonardo Sciascia novels", but with Aliprandi "not always able to keep all these elements in focus." [1]

The film grossed about 700 million lire, and was Aliprandi's highest-grossing film in his career. [1]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Curti, Roberto (2013-09-28). Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980. McFarland. pp. 150–1. ISBN   978-1-4766-1208-9.
  2. ↑ Chiti, Roberto; Lancia, Enrico; Poppi, Roberto; Pecorari, Mario (1991). Dizionario del cinema italiano (in Italian). Gremese Editore. pp. 208–9. ISBN   978-88-7605-935-3.
  3. ↑ Goble, Alan (2011-09-08). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN   978-3-11-095194-3.
  4. ↑ Film. British Federation of Film Societies. 1975.
  5. ↑ Porro, Maurizio (18 January 1975). "Corruzione su carta bollata". Corriere della Sera . p. 13.
  6. ↑ l.p. (26 January 1975). "Giudici corrotti come in un giallo". La Stampa . No. 21. p. 8. Retrieved 3 March 2025.


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