While fishing at a quiet lake, a blameless civil servant happens to witness a murder. Although he and the killer suddenly stand in front of each other, the witness (Signore Santamaria) manages to escape. At home, however, he decides not to call police, assuming that he won't be bothered by the incident any further. The murderer, on the other hand, plays his only card: He goes to police, claiming that he is in fact the witness and the Santamaria the killer. Following the honorable professors description, police go on a hunt, forcing the real witness to destroy all "evidence". As journalists write about the "witness", Santamaria confronts the killer, only to learn that the truth has been turned around: The professor tells him to keep his mouth shut, otherwise he Santamaria will be the one to end up in jail. Still, after speaking to a priest, the witness finally confesses to police, only to be arrested and sentenced to 24 years of prison. - In a manner that sometimes looks a bit humorist, this rarely seen picture portrays the witnesses' fear of being confronted with any trouble. In his attempt to live on with his unvaried life, he wants to avoid uneasiness at any cost. The killer is shown as a cold blooded intellectual capable of deceiving everyone of his false innocence. From a psychological point of view, the characters are to one-dimensional, and the build-up of the story leaves many (plot) holes to be filled. Then again, it's a quite an entertaining film. Although the political message is no very strongly displayed, this one still has the special aura Italian "political" films used to have back in that era.
9 Reviews
Obscure and underrated
christopher-underwood19 November 2013
Very good, obscure and underrated movie with three excellent male leads. Enzo Cerusico was prolific and began as a child actor in the 50s plays the poor guy caught up in this violent murder case, Riccardo Cucciolla plays the villainous professor and was in loads including Bava's Rabid Dogs and Melville's Un Flic. Meanwhile the colourful journalist, not too keen on the police line of investigation, is played by Enrico Maria Salerno, elder brother of the director and had most varied career including playing the Inspector in Bird With Crystal Plumage.
Movie begins with graphic sex killing in a cornfield and the witness becomes the suspect as a very well told tale takes us around the streets of Rome and surrounding countryside as a most believable story unfolds and a working class lad seems likely to take the rap instead of the society man. How very Italian.
Movie begins with graphic sex killing in a cornfield and the witness becomes the suspect as a very well told tale takes us around the streets of Rome and surrounding countryside as a most believable story unfolds and a working class lad seems likely to take the rap instead of the society man. How very Italian.
Good story, but not terribly entertaining the way it was done... Blu-ray A:9 V:9
lathe-of-heaven21 June 2021
I can see why people may like this film. Basically, it is a very good idea and the acting is perfectly fine. I liked the main guy and all involved. It's just that to me personally, the story moved along so slowly and almost pointlessly at times. I really do like the well made Giallo films and such, and I know this one is more of a somewhat suspenseful police / wrong man story, but if perhaps they had plotted the innocent man's actions a little tighter and gave a little more meaning to the things he does rather than spending about half the time with him just aimlessly running around, I honestly think it would have had more impact. There just wasn't very much 'focus' for the audience here. There didn't seem to be that tension that would hold an audience and keep them in true suspense. I think the story was just too loose and kind of generalized and vague, rather than plotting the story in such a way to have just a little more complexity so as to ratchet up the tension and suspense and really draw people in.
Without giving anything away, I really did like the scene towards the end which was a bit of a surprise. Let's just say that the conversation and explanations added a nice textured layer to the story, and to me was probably the strongest scene. It also gave a new layer of depth to the story which was nice, and gave it a bit more meaning in the way it played out from that point. But overall, I felt that the pace for this kind of clearly Hitchcockian story was WAY too laid back and bland. If they had given more depth and texture to both of the primary characters I think it would have really helped the story a lot. And, just a secondary observation... The soundtrack I thought was pretty lame. It didn't fit the theme of the movie at all. It was this odd, very repetitive song that reminded me more of a romantic couple walking along the beach or downtown, and NOT anything I would associate with a Crime Thriller. I think that if they had given it a really goosed up soundtrack like many films at that time, it really could have added to a more tense, suspenseful mood, instead of this bland, flat song they keep playing over and over. Most odd...
A decent watch, well acted, a good story, but just ultimately not really that terribly engaging as a movie experience. I think based on a strong curve between people who primarily like these kinds of films and people in general, ones who are familiar with this style will probably like it better (although there honestly are much better and more gripping ones out there) But, my thought is that for people in general, they're likely to find it kind of slow. Reviewers have compared this strongly to 'INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION' which goes a LOT farther to demonstrate corruption and political favouritism by the authorities. But, this one barely touches on those themes at all, despite what some of the reviewers say. I gave it a '6' which I feel is a bit generous, but going by other reviewers here who apparently do like these kinds of films and really liked this one, I tilted my rating a bit more towards those who would likely favour it...
Without giving anything away, I really did like the scene towards the end which was a bit of a surprise. Let's just say that the conversation and explanations added a nice textured layer to the story, and to me was probably the strongest scene. It also gave a new layer of depth to the story which was nice, and gave it a bit more meaning in the way it played out from that point. But overall, I felt that the pace for this kind of clearly Hitchcockian story was WAY too laid back and bland. If they had given more depth and texture to both of the primary characters I think it would have really helped the story a lot. And, just a secondary observation... The soundtrack I thought was pretty lame. It didn't fit the theme of the movie at all. It was this odd, very repetitive song that reminded me more of a romantic couple walking along the beach or downtown, and NOT anything I would associate with a Crime Thriller. I think that if they had given it a really goosed up soundtrack like many films at that time, it really could have added to a more tense, suspenseful mood, instead of this bland, flat song they keep playing over and over. Most odd...
A decent watch, well acted, a good story, but just ultimately not really that terribly engaging as a movie experience. I think based on a strong curve between people who primarily like these kinds of films and people in general, ones who are familiar with this style will probably like it better (although there honestly are much better and more gripping ones out there) But, my thought is that for people in general, they're likely to find it kind of slow. Reviewers have compared this strongly to 'INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION' which goes a LOT farther to demonstrate corruption and political favouritism by the authorities. But, this one barely touches on those themes at all, despite what some of the reviewers say. I gave it a '6' which I feel is a bit generous, but going by other reviewers here who apparently do like these kinds of films and really liked this one, I tilted my rating a bit more towards those who would likely favour it...
An interesting movie
dddvvv10 July 2001
A classic 'italian story', in which an innocent and ignorant worker (witness to a crime) pays in the place of the real guilty, a high society professor. Besides the not so original topic the movie offers good acting performances and depicts perfectly the life of a low-class worker living in the suburbs of an italian city in the mid-70's.
Really good
BandSAboutMovies18 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Between the giallo and the poliziotteschi, No, the Case Is Happily Resolved is all about what happens when a rich man gets away with murder. After all, the eyewitness won't even testify, so the actual killer claims that the witness is the murderer and that he saw it all.
Professor Eduardo Ranieri (Riccardo Cucciolla, Rabid Dogs) made eye contact with common man Fabio Santamaria (Enzo Cerusico, The Dead Are Alive) after killing a woman with a metal bar. The poor man decides that going to the police isn't worth the effort and how it would tear his life apart, so he just goes home to his wife (Martine Brochard).
Only reporter Giuseppe Ferdinando Giannoli (Enrico Maria Salerno, the brother of the director and also Inspector Morosini in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) thinks that something is wrong, but in Italy, as in the U. S., the system is not made to protect the innocent. It's there to protect those that can afford it.
The film's distributors wanted a more upbeat ending than the ambiguous one that the director (who also made Savage Three, which is also in the Arrow Video Years of Lead set) preferred.
Professor Eduardo Ranieri (Riccardo Cucciolla, Rabid Dogs) made eye contact with common man Fabio Santamaria (Enzo Cerusico, The Dead Are Alive) after killing a woman with a metal bar. The poor man decides that going to the police isn't worth the effort and how it would tear his life apart, so he just goes home to his wife (Martine Brochard).
Only reporter Giuseppe Ferdinando Giannoli (Enrico Maria Salerno, the brother of the director and also Inspector Morosini in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) thinks that something is wrong, but in Italy, as in the U. S., the system is not made to protect the innocent. It's there to protect those that can afford it.
The film's distributors wanted a more upbeat ending than the ambiguous one that the director (who also made Savage Three, which is also in the Arrow Video Years of Lead set) preferred.
Weird Implausible Misogynistic Trash
thalassafischer17 February 2024
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is beautifully filmed and interesting to watch for an entire hour, but around three-quarters of the way through the film there's a completely absurd and disgusting monologue given from the killer, claiming he's suffering more by walking free and having to live with the crime of beating an innocent woman to death (as if he wouldn't be haunted by the same memories and nightmares in prison where he belongs?) Worst of all, the poor working man the upper middle class professor frames as the murderer (to deflect attention from himself) calmly sits with the killer, listening to this narcissistic and sexist speech and says he understands! Just why me? No one in this film is sympathetic. The so-called "victim" of being framed is in many ways as bad as the murderer, seeing as that he got himself into this spot of trouble by being a selfish coward who didn't immediately report the murder to the police THEN telling the murderer that....he understands? He just doesn't want it to involve him. Well.
A decent crime thriller
Jeremy_Urquhart13 November 2022
The best thing about this movie would have to be its title. I find the bluntness of "No, The Case is Happily Resolved" oddly funny, so maybe was expecting something a little zanier than what I got with the actual film. Truth be told, it's pretty serious, and apart from a couple of shot sequences here and there, it really couldn't be called action-packed.
At the end of the day, it does the very Hitchcock "man charged with a crime he didn't do" premise quite well, and I found it to be decently engaging for most of its runtime (few non-Hitchcock films have done it as well as the miniseries "The Night Of," though).
Acting and pacing are both solid, but it's probably the music that ends up doing a surprising amount of the heavy-lifting - the score was really well done.
At the end of the day, it does the very Hitchcock "man charged with a crime he didn't do" premise quite well, and I found it to be decently engaging for most of its runtime (few non-Hitchcock films have done it as well as the miniseries "The Night Of," though).
Acting and pacing are both solid, but it's probably the music that ends up doing a surprising amount of the heavy-lifting - the score was really well done.
A little psychological gem
casimirocontarini12 March 2021
An man witnesses a murder. The murderer himself sees him and chases after him, but he manages to shake the assassin off and get home. What ensues is a psychological tug-of-war between the eyewitness and the killer.
Riccardo Cucciolla plays a reputable, yet troubled professor who commits a heinous and wanton murder, killing a young prostitute. Enzo Cerusico is a low level clerk, married with a child, who's not strong-willed enough to inform the police right away about the killing.
He then gets caught in a web of lies... will he be able to get out of it? A curious, experienced journalist, portrayed by Enrico Maria Salerno, chimes in to shed some light.
That's an unsung gem of Italian Seventies. The film is shot in such a way that holds you glued to the screen till the end.
Riccardo Cucciolla plays a reputable, yet troubled professor who commits a heinous and wanton murder, killing a young prostitute. Enzo Cerusico is a low level clerk, married with a child, who's not strong-willed enough to inform the police right away about the killing.
He then gets caught in a web of lies... will he be able to get out of it? A curious, experienced journalist, portrayed by Enrico Maria Salerno, chimes in to shed some light.
That's an unsung gem of Italian Seventies. The film is shot in such a way that holds you glued to the screen till the end.
No, the Case Is happily Resolved' is a vitriolic, slipknot tight crime thriller that will take your breath away
Weirdling_Wolf5 September 2021
In the murderous midst of confrontationally bloody, bullet-shredded milieu of the Poliziotteschi's cathartically violent heyday, assured film-maker Vittorio 'Savage Three' Salerno helms one of the Gung ho genre's more overtly damning, aggressively political works in his slipknot taut thriller 'No, The Case is Happily Resolved' wherein blameless, if somewhat aimless proletariat Fabio Santamaria whilst on one of his frequent fishing excursions, disbelievingly observes the uncomfortably frenzied bludgeoning of a terrified young woman by one of 'polite' societies finest, the highly regarded scholar Ranieri (Riccardo Cucciolla), suddenly riven in disorientating panic, the massively distraught Fabio, acting in a moment of grievous ill judgement, he fails to immediately report the heinous crime, thereby inadvertently allowing the coldly Machiavellian, middle-class assassin to effectively manipulate the desperate situation to his favour, his lofty position of immense privilege, ostensibly being a 'person of merit', one of the vaunted financial and hierarchical elite, he is thusly able to generously weigh the mutable scales of justice to his benefit, the iniquities of the class system callously corrupted to actively work against the entirely innocent, increasingly paranoid Fabio! Salerno's excitingly plotted, Kafkaesque crime thriller has a palpably nightmarish quality, strongly redolent of master film-maker Damiano Damiani's equally enervating 'I am Afraid' (1978). With its excruciatingly maintained tension, breathlessly circuitous narrative, this exemplary Euro-crime classic has lost none of its vitriol, and with the process of law no less corrupt, Vittorio Salerno's remarkably deep, immaculately acted, sinuously directed, flint-edged masterpiece remains sadly entirely relevant today, and this pristine Blu-ray restoration is an absolute revelation, and a demonstrative must-see for avid Euro-cult enthusiasts and casual crime film fans alike, and, once again, maestro Riz Ortolani creates another sublime score.
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