Toth Database - Cinema

The Name of the Law 

Country of production : Italy / France

Year: 1949

Duration: 99 min

Color: Black and White

Genre: Dramatic

Director: Pietro Germi 

Subject: Giuseppe Guido Lo Schiavo 

Screenplay: Giuseppe Mangione, Tulio Pinelli, Pietro Germi, Aldo Bizzari, Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli.

Producer: Luigi Rovere

Lux's House : Film - Oak Film

Distribution: Lux Film 

Photograph: Leonida Barboni 

Music: Carlo Rustichelli

Set design: Gino Morici

Performers and Characters

Massimo Girotti : Guido Schiavi 

Camillo Mastrocinque : Baron Lo Vasto

Jone Salinas : Baroness Teresa Lo Vasto

Charles Vane : Turi Passalacqua

Saro Urzì : Marshal Grifò 

Turi Pandolfini : Don Fifi 

Umberto Spadaro : Lawyer Farglia

Saro Arcidiacono: The Chancellor

Ignazio Balsamo : Francesco Messana 

Nanda De Santis : Lorenzina

Bernardo Indelicato : Paulinus 

Francesco Navarra: Vanni Vetriolo 

Plot

Sicily, 1948: a young magistrate of Palermo is sent as a priest to Capodarso (in the reality Barrafranca), a Sicilian village and, for the sake of justice and legality, finds himself forced to fight against various social injustices. His zeal will lead him to clash with a notable, Baron Lo Vasto and the Mafia, represented by the masseur Turi Passalacqua and his men. All this surrounded by an omerous and highly distrustful reality that only hinders his work. Only against everyone, supported only by the Marshal of the Carabinieri Station and by his young friend Paulinus (whose barbaric killing will convince him to renounce his resignation just presented), will he lead to the end his battle that consists not only in applying the law but also in teaching its value. 

Criticism 

For the Mereghetti Dictionary, it is "an eye-catching work in its spectacular but very ambiguous from an ideological point of view. " For the Morandini Dictionary it is a "vigorous here is the fascinating action film also s and socially unreliable, fore anticipatory of civil cinema of the six years