“In this city, all the crimes end up crimes of passion,” says Prosecutor Antonio Spicacci (Amedeo Nazzari) in Luigi Zampa’s Processo alla città (US: The City Stands Trial), a police procedural drama in which the entire city of Naples appears to be guilty. When a wealthy husband and wife are murdered in two different locations, Spicacci and his bulldog assistant Perrone (Paolo Stoppa) comb the city for suspects, making connection after connection until they unearth a likely tie to the Camorra clan, the major Neapolitan Mafia-like syndicate that controls much of the city and intimidates its denizens into silence. Central to the investigation is a brothel revealed to have been owned by the murdered couple and where Spicacci’s friend Liliana Ferrari (Silvana Pampanini) works as a prostitute. This leads to the revelation of an Epiphany Eve banquet attended by dozens of guests, including members of the Camorra gang, and a remarkable extended sequence in which Spicacci assembles all the guests and recreates the event. Another suspect is Luigi Esposito (Franco Interlenghi), a small-time crook who trades information with the police in exchange for a visa so he can emigrate to Argentina (a popular destination for war-fatigued Italians) with his girlfriend Nunziata (Irène Galter). Masetti’s score adds dramatic bursts of pathos, and Serafin’s camera creates thick noir atmospherics from time to time, especially a stunning alley setting where shadows lurk.
By Michael Bayer
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