EDITOR’S NOTE: This was originally on the site on September 12, 2021 and has been reposted as Radiance Films has released it on blu ray. The limited special edition of 2,000 copies has a 2K restoration of the film from the original negative, presented in the original 1.33:1 and an alternate 1.85:1 widescreen presentation, as well as newly filmed interviews with academic and Italian cinema expert Richard Dyer and academic and screenwriter Giacomo Scarpelli;  archival interviews with cinematographer Luciano Tovoli and Jean-Louis Trintignant; a trailer; a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters and a limited edition 24-page booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mariangela Sansone and a reprint of an archival piece on the film. You can get it from MVD.

“The police have the victim, the weapon and the suspect. What they don’t have is the Sunday Woman.” You know that a movie is high class when Marcello Mastroianni plays the investigator and it’s based on a book that’s listed as one of the first examples of modern Italian crime novels.

Commissioner Santamaria (Mastroianni) is on the case of Garrone, an architect who was playing an intellectual game of murder within a series of letters to his friend Massimo Campi (Jean-Louis Trintignant). While investigating, Satanamaria falls for one of the suspects, Anna Carla Dosio. Can we blame him when she’s played by Jacqueline Bisset?

It seems that Garrone has been killed for his blackmailing, but now that Campi’s boyfriend Lello has also been killed — amongst others — the plot is thickening.

Luigi Comencini is usually the director of more high brow things than we cover here. But hey — there’s a Morricone soundtrack to tether us to the tenuous connections to the giallo genre that we hold so dear. I guess I shouldn’t say too high brow, as after all the main victim is murdered with a stone penis, so there’s that.