The Sunday Woman 1975

Inspector Santamaria, Chief of Homicide Squad, Marcello Mastroianni, is assigned to investigate the murder of the architect Garrone, Claudio Gora, a second-rate fellow living on the fringes of polite society, who has been battered to death with a stone phallus.

Anna Carla Dosio, Jacqueline Bisset, the bored wife of a businessman who is often away, brings to the police a discarded draft of a letter she planned to send to her dear friend Massimo Campi, Jean-Louis Trintignant, in which she says they must rid Garrone.

Massimo Campi, Jean-Louis Trintignant, has a secret lover, a young clerk named Lello Riviera, Aldo Reggiani, who works in the city’s planning department, and Santamaria has the young man followed.

It emerges that Garrone was acting for the widow Ines Tabusso, Lina Volonghi, who lives in a crumbling villa, along with a “simple” sister. The house sits on Turin’s renowned Hill, and if she could obtain permission to build around the villa’s surroundings, she would make a fortune.

The Inspector is warned by his boss to move with care now that rich and influential people are involved. All his suspects have motives for killing Garrone, and none have solid alibis for the time of his death. While Campi withholds cooperation, to protect his homosexuality, Anna Carla enthusiastically assists Santamaria and promises him a secret rendezvous, beginning with lunch.

Hoping to win the cooperation of Ines, Santamaria mounts a night raid to clear her property of prostitutes.

By coincidence, a Saturday morning finds all the involved at the Balon, the city’s flea market, where Riviera is to meet with the possible murderer, but he is himself killed by a stone pestle.

The culprit is Ines, who killed Garrone after he had discovered by chance that on her property there was an ancient and artistic stone used as a laundry, set under the provisions of Art Superintendence, so the Tabusso grounds were forbidden to sell; Garrone had tried to coax her into believing the interdiction would be removed if she bribed the right people.

With the case solved, Santamaria and Anna Carla are able to enjoy the private lunch they promised each other. Their quiet, sunlit afternoon ends when she must get out of bed to start packing for the family holidays.