by Clarke Fountain
synopsis
Marcello Mastroianni plays the downtrodden Bruno Baldassare, a murder-squad investigator in Rome who gets no respect from his peers, who give him the least interesting cases. His bumbling aide, Cantalamessa, gets even less respect. While a lightning strike could have caused the deaths of two people, the circumstances of their deaths arouse his suspicions. In this satirical detective comedy, among the suspects he must question are the victim's widow, Princess Dell'Orso (Ursula Andress) and a seedy screenwriter named Harry Hellman (Peter Ustinov).
characteristics
- Murder
- Screenwriter
- Widower
- Kill
- Investigation
- Aristocrat
