At the same time Hollywood was presenting gangsters as glamorous, larger-than-life personalities in film after film, Italian directors, notably Pietro Germi, were shedding light on the reality of mafia control as a “legitimate” — even respected — alternative to weak government or even anarchy in its Sicilian birthplace. With a script co-written by Italian masters Federico Fellini and Mario Monicelli, Germi’s In nome della legge (US: In the Name of the Law) stars Massimo Girotti as the new sheriff in town who’s quickly threatened by the locals and their status quo, a not in common narrative of the Western genre (opening at a deserted train station, surrounded by armed men on horses). With the odds stacked against him, 26-year-old Guido Schiavi’s mission is to rid at least one Sicilian town of mafia control, specifically by challenging the authority of the baron Lo Vasto (Camillo Mastrocinque) and forcing him to reopen his mining operation to provide desperately needed jobs to feed the local families. Along the way, as noir would have it, he finds himself falling for the baron’s lovely daughter Teresa (Jone Salinas). Germi blends noir and western elements with his neorealist palette to contrast the abject poverty of townsfolk (tattered clothing, dilapidated huts, dirt floors) with the opulence inside the baron’s palazzo. Still, the film seems to be telling us that everyone — rich and poor, powerful and powerless — will remain trapped in the same, primitive system. (“This place is a graveyard,” Teresa says).