1970s Paranoia Films (Italy version)

Only seen Citizen Above Suspicion.

Some amazing titles.

I read that as The Mattel Affair for a second which is a film that should not be made

Would definitely involve the wire-tapping of Parker Brothers HQ in order to gain advance intel on Monopoly.

there's no way I'll be able to watch all these in the next six days, but maybe I'll try

it looks like all these films are viewable (in who knows what quality) on free streaming services, at least in the US ... I found them on YouTube, Plex, Pluto, and Tubi

‘the mattei affair’ is terrific, gian maria volonté is the GOAT

Here's the ones I've seen:

Investigations Of A Citizen Above Suspicion - You probably don't need me to tell you about this one but yeah, it's a masterpiece.

Slap The Monster On Page One - Volonté plays a newspaper editor who focuses in on a rape/murder case both to distract from upcoming elections and to reinforce what in 70's italian political reality was known as the strategy of tension - encourage leftist political violence in order to better paint the left as a threat, thus making the public more amenable to more repressive legislation. This is a movie that has never heard of the word subtlety and is all the better for it.

No, The Case Is Happily Resolved - Fair warning that this starts with a truly harrowing scene of gendered violence. After that though it's a smart thriller about miscarriage of justice. Has a producer-imposed ending that will make you lol, as contrived and jarring as anything the Hayes code forced American directors to do.

The Case Is Closed, Forget It - Basically a prison flick with Franco Nero as the wrongfully accused. But it goes into political and class dynamics that make it more than just a Hitchcockian wrong man thing, plus of course prison is a good place to feel paranoid.

How To Kill A Judge - Damiani's meta conspiracy thriller and self critique, after a decade plus of making political thrillers. Good one to watch after the others.

Revolver - Mostly a crime thriller but with a political context. Starring Oliver Reed, and who is better at expressing futile disgust at a society rotten to the core?

Ah right, Revolver was on TV last year! Oliver Reed appeared to get drunker as the film progressed.

(... it was on London Live which unfortunately seems to have given up on showing movies in favour of true crime documentaries... joining about 10,000 other channels showing the same thing).

I just read the description of Investigation and it sounds wild.

List seems fairly evenly split between 'civic' exposes like Investigations of a Citizen Above Suspicion and more 'tough cop' action flicks like Revolver. It's weird because the primary source for many poliziottesco is obviously Dirty Harry, but that's actually a much more paranoid and ambiguous text than most of the Italian cop movies, where there's never much doubt that the end always justifies the means.

One time there were two paranoia films starring Max von Sydow as a depraved agent of the system - Three Days of the Condor (1975) & Illustrious Corpses (1976)

Only seen Investigations Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, but yeah, it rocks.

Investigations has been on my list for a long time but I was not ready for it! Ten years ago it might have seemed funnier than it does now. Incredible lead performance, looks great, sustains its queasy mix of comedy and horror all the way through.

List seems fairly evenly split between 'civic' exposes like Investigations of a Citizen Above Suspicion and more 'tough cop' action flicks like Revolver.

That's not really true - Revolver is the only one on this list that could even vaguely be described as a tough cop action flick. Even there Reed is a prison warden and shares top billing with criminal Testi, plus of course director Sollima was a leftist so Reed's initial moral righteousness gets progressively dismantled as the film goes on.

As a big poliziottesco fan I'd say it's always a toss of the coin whether the film's being made by someone on the left or the right, and so yeah a lot of them are less morally fraught than Dirty Harry, a lot of them very much aren't. One big surprise is Street Law by Enzo Castellari, which despite its director not being any kind of deep political thinker is pretty upfront about the ultimate pointlessness of vigilante action.

LOL I am basing that opposition mainly on whether a film appeared in Arrow's Years of Lead box set or not.

I watched Revolver like 2 weeks ago. Is there a version where Reed isn’t dubbed?

Doubt it. Sound on Italian movies is nearly always post sync, so Reed would have to have re-recorded his dialogue after shooting, and imported stars didn't tend to hang around once they were done. It is a big loss with people like Reed or Christopher Lee, who was often dubbed on his 'continental pictures'.

The Years Of Lead box, yeah, that's two cool cop action flicks, one goofy action flick (Downhill Racer) and the included-in-this-poll No, The Case Is Happily Resolved, which features no cop protagonist and is very much in the civic expose mold.

Dunno what your level of familiarity with the genre is but that box is v much not a good intro. For a leftist pov to the genre I recommend the works of Fernando Di Leo.

I was another who had only seen Investigations Of A Citizen Above Suspicion, which I found engrossing but brittle (I think Pauline Kael called it "nerve-jangling", not in a positive sense), almost cynical in tone. However, the library had Illustrious Corpses on DVD (I had seen four of Francesco Rosi's other films, but neither of those on this list).
Without ever stepping outside of realism, there is just something so unusual about the way he tells the story, constructs scenes, chooses shots and edits them together. It reminds me a little of Bertolucci (though less showy) - almost none of Rosi's choices are boilerplate, and the direction might seem like indirection if it were handled less skillfully. I guess that as a depiction of paranoia, it worked, because I have no idea who was behind the conspiracy, what their aims were and who stands to benefit...but a great movie nonetheless.

I've only seen Illustrious Corpses, which I caught at a Film Forum retrospective a few years ago. I greatly enjoyed it. It got me into the novels of Leonardo Sciascia. Other Sciascia based films would also probably fit the vibe. "We Still Kill the Old Way" is also great, but from 1967, so out of the scope of this thread.

Same director as Investigations of A Citizen. I guess I should check that one out.

The first thing that came to mind when I saw this thread title was Dillinger is Dead...but it's from 1969, and is arguably more nihilistic than paranoid.

Yes, Rosi and Petri are the kings of this genre, pretty much. I've seen a bunch of Petri's films by now and he's consistently impressive, also varied.

Yeah Dillinger is Dead wouldn't fit here.

While I've not seen most of these the titles remind me of the sour mood of Leonardo Sciascia's books (most written during the 70s). Not straight paranoia, but have in them that kind of resignation that there won't be justice, that something darker and stranger -- but man made and accepted by society -- is above it all.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The Poll is Closed, Forget It

No, The Poll Is Happily Resolved

Just watched Investigation for the first time thanks to this thread. What an amazingly cynical and angry movie! I loved the rant during Dottore's promotion scene.

I kept thinking about Pynchon during the movie. He probably loved this movie - it covers a lot of the same ground, right down to the linking of sexual dysfunction and fascism.

I was blown away by The Mattei Affair when I watched it last month. A very powerful and intriguing conspiracy thriller. Will catch up on Investigations Of A Citizen Above Suspicion over the weekend.

Did not include A Man On His Knees in this poll as it already had two Damianis, but it sure fits. An ex-con now making an honest living via a kiosk (as much as such a thing is possible; he still has to pay protection money) ends up on a mafia hitlist and no one will tell him why or how. The mystery unfolds but the answers provide no solace. Impressively bleak ending. A bit overlong, perhaps, but it's kinda perfect this came out in 1979, a summation of a decade's worth of paranoia. Out on blu from the fine folks at Radiance.