We Still Kill the Old Way


We Still Kill the Old Way is a 1967 Italian crime film directed by Elio Petri. It was entered into the 1967 Cannes Film Festival where it won the award for Best Screenplay. It is based on the novel To Each His Own by Leonardo Sciascia.

Plot

The death threats against the local pharmacist Arturo Manno do not surprise any of his friends because he is a known womanizer in his small town. They do not take his reports of the threats seriously until Manno, together with his friend Dr. Antonio Roscio, are killed while hunting one early morning. Suspicion falls on the father and two brothers of a 16-year-old girl who supposedly had relations with Manno. But Professor Laurana, who had seen one of the extortion letters, does not believe in the guilt of these illiterates from a rundown neighborhood since the letters of the anonymous notes have been made with clippings from the Osservatore Romano - a Vatican newspaper with few local subscribers.
He asks his lawyer friend Rosello to take care of the prisoners, and begins his own research, also motivated by his secret love for Luisa Roscio, the widow of one of the murdered men. His trail leads him to Palermo, but he realizes that Luisa Roscio does not reciprocate his feelings and that his detective work is not delivering results. Shortly after his rejection by Luisa, he is murdered and his body disappears. Life in his native village continues unchanged, partly maintained through the close link between Luisa Roscio and the lawyer Rosello.

Cast