When several important judges are murdered, Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura) is put on the case, but what starts as a simple detective story soon becomes a conspiracy thriller.

Based on Leonardo Sciascia’s book, this was directed by Francesco Rosi (The Mattei Affair, The Moment of Truth), who wrote the script along with Tonino Guerra and Lino Jannuzzi.

When three judges are killed — during the Years of Lead, the times of great political unrest in Italy — Rogas is told not to go into the crimes that the men committed and just to solve their murders. This leads to Rogas being demoted after the murders don’t stop and told to work with the political division so that the crimes can be blamed on revolutionary Leftist terrorist groups and not Cres, a man who was set up by the judges and his wife (Maria Carta). 

Or maybe it goes deeper. Even the chief of police is in on the crimes, which leads Rogas to believe that while Cres killed the first three judges, the other murders were ordered to justify the prosecution of the far-left groups. But he’s too deep, and there’s no way he can learn this much and make it out alive.

In case you’re wondering, the title of this film is based on Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse), the surrealist game invented by André Breton. It’s when players contribute words or images to a collective piece of art without seeing what others have done.

The last line of this, when the reporter asks whether people will ever know the truth, and the answer is “Truth is not always revolutionary,” sparked widespread controversy.

The Radiance release of this film has a 4K restoration of the movie by Cineteca di Bologna at L’Immagine Ritrovata and The Film Foundation, as well as audio commentary by filmmaker Alex Cox, archival interviews with director Francesco Rosi, Francesco Rosi and Lino Ventura, an interview with Gaetana Marrone, author of The Cinema of Francesco Rosi, a trailer and an image gallery. It has a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters, a limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Atkinson, and newly translated writing by and an interview with Rosi. This is a limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.