Illustrious Corpses 1976

The film opens in a Palermo tense with demonstrations, strikes, and a broader clash between the Left and the Christian Democratic government. The first victim is Varga, an investigating judge whose death rattles the city. The police assign Rogas to lead the case, but almost as soon as he begins, two more judges are killed. All three victims had collaborated on previous cases, suggesting a link beyond random violence. Rogas’s superiors urge him to abandon rumors and instead chase a tangible suspect, the “crazy lunatic who for no reason whatever is going about murdering judges,” a directive that only deepens the sense of a political trap around him.

Rogas probes into three men who were wrongfully convicted by the murdered judges and narrows in on Cres, a pharmacist accused of poisoning his wife. Rogas concludes Cres was likely framed, yet Cres has vanished and even his portraits are defaced, with faces cut from the photographs. Through this investigation a fourth judge is killed, and Rogas unexpectedly crosses paths with Cusan, his old school friend who writes for a far-left newspaper. Although their politics diverge, Cusan earnestly respects the rigor and integrity of Rogas’s inquiry, and the two rekindle a wary trust amid mounting danger.

After a fifth killing outside the Justice Building, two eyewitnesses—one a policeman and the other a prostitute—claim to have seen two young revolutionaries flee the scene and a car speeding away. Yet the testimonies diverge on the car’s direction, complicating the police narrative. Rogas is quickly demoted and ordered to work with the political division, the aim being to pin the murders on the revolutionary Left. Despite the setback, Rogas presses on and seeks out the [Riches], the Supreme Court president, to warn him that he may be next in the killers’ crosshairs.

At a party held in a courthouse salon, Rogas discovers a tangle of power: the Minister of Justice mingling with prominent Left figures and the editor of a revolutionary paper that Cusan edits. In this charged atmosphere, the scheming figure of Galano emerges as a central player, signaling that the Christian Democratic side might eventually have to form a coalition with the Communist Party. Rogas also thinks he spots Cres, but the man vanishes again before Rogas can confront him. The sense of being watched grows stronger, and Rogas’s sense of a larger conspiracy deepens.

Back at the precinct, Rogas has a colleague wiretap the Chief of Police’s office. One recording captures a chilling instruction to “take it easy on the judges,” hinting that someone high up is shaping events. Rogas theorizes that the early murders were designed to justify prosecuting far-left groups and intends to bring this theory to light through allies he can trust. He shares his suspicions with Cusan, who, after initial doubts, agrees to connect him with Amar, the Communist Party’s secretary-general. Unbeknownst to them, Riches has been listening in, and that conversation will have fatal consequences as the order of killings closes in on Rogas.

Rogas discovers that his own phone line is tapped. He meets Amar in a museum, planning to expose the manipulation behind the killings, but both men are killed in a sudden, brutal confrontation. In the chaos that follows, the Chief of Police issues a statement blaming Amar’s death on Rogas, painting Rogas as mentally unstable and claiming he committed suicide after the murder. The official narrative tightens its grip as the city teeters between street clashes and a fragile, controlled order.

In the closing act, a somber dialogue between Cusan and the Communist Party’s vice-secretary exposes the grim calculus behind political power. The vice-secretary concedes that the government may accept the official line to avert open conflict, but the exchange lingers on a pointed question about truth. Cusan presses, and the vice-secretary delivers a stark, unsettling answer: truth is not always revolutionary.

Truth is not always revolutionary.