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It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I enjoy all there horror films etc. in his early films like Sherlock Holmes and the deadly necklace and Dracula 1958 he was a good handsome man when he was younger. and his wife gave birth to a lovely daughter now he is grown up and married,I have bought severalbooks as well as from his actor friends, When actors done a Dracula documentary on Dracula the impaler i went to that castle in the summer of 1974, the castle was very large and had nice items inside being on top of the mountains it stood very proud, but i couldn't see any other building around there.It felt eerie when i was there my parents and my younger brother heard wolves i do not know where they were and how many live at the mountains, at night the air was cool but during the daytime it was too hot.by the tour operator we had camera's but allowed to use them inside.the salamander was film was good i saw his wife but she said no script in the film.

Peter Zinner won an Oscar for editing THE DEER HUNTER (1978); for his only directorial effort, he chose this adaptation of the Morris West best-seller which was shown on local TV back in the day (actually, that is how I first heard of it). He did manage to assemble an impressive all-star cast: Franco Nero plays the hero carabiniere in a throwback to some of the political thrillers he had made in his native country – such as DAY OF THE OWL (1968), in which he co-starred with Claudia Cardinale, and CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN (1971), also featuring Martin Balsam; both actors also appear here, the latter as Nero's closest collaborator who eventually falls in the line of duty. Anthony Quinn is the titular figure (a wealthy industrialist and ex-legendary WWII partisan), Sybil Danning the mistress of a dead army officer (whose apparent suicide sets events in motion) but also serving as Nero's unconvincing love interest, Eli Wallach the General leading a proposed coup d'etat, Christopher Lee as Nero's superior (actually a prince[!] who is unsurprisingly inextricably related with the Government takeover plot – interestingly, his on-screen wife was played by Lee's own real-life spouse in an infrequent appearance), Cleavon Little as a Black American ex-colleague of Nero's (whom the latter calls upon when he is in a fix) and Paul Smith (as a sadistic "surgeon"). There are, however, also a number of Euro-Cult regulars: John Steiner in the role of Wallach's aide as well as lover of his neglected wife Cardinale, Renzo Palmer, Marino Mase' – unenviably playing a corpse! – and Nello Pazzafini. While tolerable as entertainment (though there is less action than I had anticipated) and featuring a decent score by the great Ennio Morricone, the film is ultimately too superficial and uneven to make a ripple in the circles it professes to denounce; nevertheless, the clever climax is surprisingly (but effectively) handled in the style of the "Thin Man" movies! Besides, one particular scene nearly turns this into a camp classic i.e. when the hero, caught and about to be tortured by Smith, attacks the latter clad only in a harness along his waist (which gives unwarranted prominence to Nero's groin while leaving his buttocks completely exposed!) but ends up slammed against the wall hanging upside-down instead!!

A rightist plot to stage a coup d'etat against the Italian government is foiled by a Captain in the Carabinieri. Led by industrialists, high ranking government and military officials, some of whom hold noble titles, the plotters control vital sectors of the state that they seemed unstoppable but for the dogged determination of a middle ranking police officer (Franco Nero) and a detective (Martin Balsam).The plot and the events surrounding it are too complicated to be condensed in an average length movie and so it was a bit confusing. Nevertheless, it manages to convey the plausibility of a right wing coup against the Italian government. After all, many communists and socialists were seated in parliament during this period and they controlled the countryside municipalities through their mayors. Of course, the captains of industries, the nobility, their allies in the military elite and government bureaucracy, did not like that. My appreciation of the movie heightened when serendipitously, I chanced upon a copy of the Morris L. West novel of the same title.It is interesting to note that Italians still use noble titles like "principe" and "principessa." But these are not necessarily, the offspring of kings but may be compared to the English earls. Remember that for much of the medieval period, Italy was divided into city states some of which were nominally under the Holy Roman Emperor who did not brook the presence of kings except for his own relatives like the King of Sicily. There is also the unique Italian noble title of "Falconeri," who must have been the falconer of a Grand Duke. Perhaps we can compare him to a Hapsburg baron.Italians are great designers of uniforms (among other things such as cars) and it shows in this movie. The Captain dons at least two different uniforms in various scenes and his formal or gala dress was interestingly cool. That golden flame insignia on his officer's cap caught my eye.

The ingredients are here for a passable political-thriller but the approach used to tell the story is numbingly routine. Investigator Franco Nero pursues his case simply through a series of interviews, thus allowing the movie to present its roster of marquee-names -- Christopher Lee, Eli Wallach, Claudia Cardinale, etc. -- in a succession of talky, static scenes that lack interest and vitality. (Though these interviews provide an opportunity to show off a series of impressively furnished and decorated rooms.) And then, when it comes time for Nero to present his solution to the case, he does so by showing to a group of people a movie which simply re-caps information gleaned from his interviews!Attempts to liven up the proceedings with spurts of action merely serve to emphasize the overall dullness of the movie. For example, when Nero falls into the clutches of a villain known as "the Surgeon" who is determined to torture information from him, we only see Nero -- stripped to a jockstrap and strapped to a chair -- being given an injection with a hypodermic needle. Surely this is one of the most boring forms of torture ever shown on the screen.