The film's main lesson is its realism, miles away from Hollywood's view of newspaper and newsmakers, even when it tries to be critical. The cynical newspaper editor's character (played by Volontè) is a brilliant and accurate portrait of the worst manipulative journalism.
10 Reviews
An addendum to the above reviews..
hypermodernsarego4 February 2014
..left out of the above is the equal condemnation of the left. No side is unscathed, I think the overall thrust of the film is that the victims are the innocent believers in justice. A very complex portrayal of the chaos and selfishness which imbue (Italian) politics. And, of course, each individuals complicity in the whole stewpot. I would add that the montage sequences date this film. Overall the cinematography is outstanding, performances excellent. The score and pacing satisfy. Not a traditional police procedural, but more of a character study. It is definitely a deft delivery of a construction that relies more on your faith in the film maker, rather than the presentation of a protagonist. I hate giving films stars, but how about 7.
Who's the monster?
JasparLamarCrabb29 August 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Marco Bellocchio's indictment of the press as an opinion-making machine that turns the public into sheep is a bit in-your-face, but it's also a well thought out and well put together thriller. In Milan, when a young girl is found murdered, a highly regarded newspaper blames a trouble-making radical and whips the public and the police into a frenzy. The paper's editor-in-chief (Gian Maria Volonté) assigns idealistic cub reporter Fabio Garriba to cover the story. Garriba soon realizes that he too is being manipulated by Volonté. It's a brutal and frank movie that makes it clear that the established press is the enemy, fabricating stories, printing half truths and innuendo over facts. Volonté, well-known for his left-wing leanings in real life, is great in a role that has him representing the establishment as both impeccable and oily at the same time. He dons three piece suits, dines with the bourgeois and comes across as a pillar of respectability when in fact he is a lying bastard. Laura Betti gives a brilliant performance as a pathetic would-be radical cut down to size by Volonté. The music is by Nicola Piovani and Ennio Morricone.
Characteristic class war thriller.
Mozjoukine7 April 2005
After a punchy start, the political banners of a coming election across Milanese streets and a leftist demonstration that leads to fire bombing the news paper office where editor Volonte is quick to take advantage of the story, this one weaves through what looks like it will be a complicated account of class warfare but ends up being a simple minded polemic. It's hard to swallow an editor personally intimidating the guilty party into silence for his own purposes.
However this is the Volonte of L'ATTENTAT and INDAGINE SU UN CITTADINO, dominating the screen with a stops out performance and just watching him is worth the ticket price. Laura Betti, as the party faithful he makes look as if she has betrayed her cause, can go head to head with him. No one else stands much of a chance.
There is a great Morricone sounding score and expert camera-work - zooming down passage ways to provide menace. The use of a working newspaper as background is particularly effective.
These European political thrillers, of which Volonte was the mast head star, are a rewarding collection and should have wider circulation.
However this is the Volonte of L'ATTENTAT and INDAGINE SU UN CITTADINO, dominating the screen with a stops out performance and just watching him is worth the ticket price. Laura Betti, as the party faithful he makes look as if she has betrayed her cause, can go head to head with him. No one else stands much of a chance.
There is a great Morricone sounding score and expert camera-work - zooming down passage ways to provide menace. The use of a working newspaper as background is particularly effective.
These European political thrillers, of which Volonte was the mast head star, are a rewarding collection and should have wider circulation.
Thrilling, disturbing and very provocative.
christopher-underwood3 February 2014
Really good, solid, political film making from a new fave of mine, Marco Belloccio. Indeed this taut thriller mixes the murky world of newspapers with the equally murky world of politics. This opens with in your face real footage of early 70s street riots in Milan. Such is the ferocity and spectacle it seems likely that once the narrative begins there will be an anti-climatic lull. Not at all, Gian Maria Volonte stars as the newspaper boss prepared to do anything for his fascist friends and the survival of his newspaper. His cynicism and by implication that of the director knows no bounds. An innocent schoolgirl is raped, there is a clear guilty party but does it suit the ends of those in charge for matters to proceed as they should? Volonte is masterly in the role, as he was in the slightly earlier, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion but he is aided here by more than adequate support from all involved. Thrilling, disturbing and very provocative.
SLAP THE MONSTER ON PAGE ONE (Marco Bellocchio, 1972) ***
Bunuel197624 January 2010
Considering the sheer amount of (vaguely boring) movies flaunting their individual creator's extreme left-wing politics to emerge from Europe throughout the 1960s and 1970s, it is hard in hindsight to believe just how many talented film-makers were 'duped' into upholding such naïve ideals; that said, the other side of the coin – basically equating Fascism – was even less comforting and that more dangerous
but it does make for rather intriguing (and ultimately more rewarding) cinema! Bellocchio's film, then, was one of a handful of titles to look at this alternative 'option': perhaps the most famous such example was Elio Petri's Oscar-winning INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (1970), which shares with the picture under review its leading man – Gian Maria Volonte'; like that one and Dino Risi's similarly excellent IN NOME DEL POPOLO ITALIANO (1971), the film takes the form of a thriller – both this and the latter, in fact, involve the investigation into the rape and murder of a teenager emanating from high society: here, a radical is accused of the crime – and hounded by Volonte''s opportunistic newspaper for it – but the guilty party turns out to be somebody else, ferreted by a reporter not taken in by his superior's wiles, who is pursued in turn (and even blackmailed!) by the unscrupulous editor. The movie paints a most cynical image of the press, beginning with Volonte' 'embellishing' – and directing his underlings to shoot – a fire that broke out at the office during a riot (he is seen making intermittent contact throughout with the politically-affiliated young owner of the paper, played by "Euro-Cult" stalwart John Steiner); later on, while viewing the TV broadcast of a talk-show he was involved in, the man even takes it upon his wife – for her passivity and intellectual limitations!; however, the worst victim of his dishonesty is the uncouth schoolteacher (Laura Betti) he befriended in order to exploit for her affair with the murder suspect – one of the film's best sequences is the one where she is made to confront her lover's fellow activists in the police station. The film features a good Morricone-esquire score by Nicola Piovani and ends on a shot depicting the rampant pollution at the city limits – a metaphor for the so-called "yellow press" and remarkably similar to the finale of yet another newspaper movie, the classic FIVE STAR FINAL (1931).
Above average political satire .....
PimpinAinttEasy6 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This is a film I watched only because I am a big fan of Gian Maria Volante. I'm not aware of the political context of this film.
The film came across as a one sided political satire that is severely critical of a right wing newspaper and its almost godlike ability to manufacture popular opinion. The film is also a sort of a murder mystery with a brief account of a love triangle.
The murder of a teenage girl provides an opportunity for a right-wing newspaper to blame the crime on a communist activist, just before an important election. The film provides a detailed account of how the editor of the newspaper (played by Volante)and his colleagues goes about manipulating the public opinion against the communists.
Laura Betti was very good as a jealous lover. The scene where she reads out of her rival's (the teenage girl) diary is quite hilarious. Volante's performance seemed to be uninspired. His role as the evil conniving editor of the right wing newspaper where he simply walks into witnesses, reporters and suspects houses and convinces them to support the case against the communists was hard to digest. The scene where he manipulates Betti's character was rubbish.
The editing was flawed because scenes seemed to end rather abruptly. Background score was quite good but was used minimally.
There were some nice directorial flourishes like the ending with a dry canal being filled with polluted waste filled water.
The film came across as a one sided political satire that is severely critical of a right wing newspaper and its almost godlike ability to manufacture popular opinion. The film is also a sort of a murder mystery with a brief account of a love triangle.
The murder of a teenage girl provides an opportunity for a right-wing newspaper to blame the crime on a communist activist, just before an important election. The film provides a detailed account of how the editor of the newspaper (played by Volante)and his colleagues goes about manipulating the public opinion against the communists.
Laura Betti was very good as a jealous lover. The scene where she reads out of her rival's (the teenage girl) diary is quite hilarious. Volante's performance seemed to be uninspired. His role as the evil conniving editor of the right wing newspaper where he simply walks into witnesses, reporters and suspects houses and convinces them to support the case against the communists was hard to digest. The scene where he manipulates Betti's character was rubbish.
The editing was flawed because scenes seemed to end rather abruptly. Background score was quite good but was used minimally.
There were some nice directorial flourishes like the ending with a dry canal being filled with polluted waste filled water.
A mix of genre
BandSAboutMovies7 September 2021
Warning: Spoilers
So this is kind of cheating, because Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina is more a drama or crime movie than a giallo, but it has enough elements of the form to warrant being included in the company of black gloved killers.
Il Giornale is a newspaper that may remind you of some other media sources in 2021: it has a strictly conservative and fascist audience and seeks to discover the right wing way of looking at every issue, no matter how silly they are, while ignoring the real issues that people are dealing with every single day.
Then a young woman is assaulted and killed, so the bullpen goes all in screaming for the return of the death penalty and actually goes so far as to get involved in the investigation. They believe that an idealistic student protester is behind the sex crime, which their readership is only too happy to get behind.
Gian Maria Volonté plays the editor who gets the fires burning. He always ends up in the more mindful and socially conscious giallo that don't really fit the standard ideas of what makes one of these films, like Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo and, well, this one. Plus Laura Betti (A Bay of Blood, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) and John Steiner are in this if you're looking for familiar faces. Plus there's an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.
Sergio Donati, who wrote the script, was the original director but he and Volonté had artistic differences. He also wrote The Weekend Murders, The Island of the Fishmen AKA Screamers, the original Man on Fire and Almost Blue. And oh yeah - Raw Deal!
Life imitates art: two years later, a real right-wing newspaper named Il Giornale started up.
Il Giornale is a newspaper that may remind you of some other media sources in 2021: it has a strictly conservative and fascist audience and seeks to discover the right wing way of looking at every issue, no matter how silly they are, while ignoring the real issues that people are dealing with every single day.
Then a young woman is assaulted and killed, so the bullpen goes all in screaming for the return of the death penalty and actually goes so far as to get involved in the investigation. They believe that an idealistic student protester is behind the sex crime, which their readership is only too happy to get behind.
Gian Maria Volonté plays the editor who gets the fires burning. He always ends up in the more mindful and socially conscious giallo that don't really fit the standard ideas of what makes one of these films, like Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, Todo Modo and, well, this one. Plus Laura Betti (A Bay of Blood, Hatchet for the Honeymoon) and John Steiner are in this if you're looking for familiar faces. Plus there's an Ennio Morricone soundtrack.
Sergio Donati, who wrote the script, was the original director but he and Volonté had artistic differences. He also wrote The Weekend Murders, The Island of the Fishmen AKA Screamers, the original Man on Fire and Almost Blue. And oh yeah - Raw Deal!
Life imitates art: two years later, a real right-wing newspaper named Il Giornale started up.
A message movie
Leofwine_draca14 April 2021
Warning: Spoilers
A dark political drama from Italy. It has elements of both the giallo and polizia movie genres but tends to chart its own unique course throughout, shining a murky light into the fractious world of Italian politics and the extreme right and left. As a film it's quite low budget and non-entertaining at times, although it does have plenty to say for itself. A message movie through and through.
Concise, dark and potent
philosopherjack5 May 2018
Warning: Spoilers
Marco Bellocchio's Slap the Monster on Page One certainly reflects a particular time and place, seeped in the self-satisfied calculations of the monied Italian establishment, but it resonates bleakly in our time of heightened political cynicism and authoritarianism and of systematic disregard for truth. Gian Maria Volonte's Bizanti is the editor-in-chief of a prominent newspaper, leading its self-portrayal as a societal bulwark against violent leftist forces. When a young well-connected woman is brutally murdered, the paper seizes on the story in the way media always does, as a flagrant circulation booster and, when a likely suspect emerges, as particularly potent evidence of the degradation of the left. But the reporter on the story becomes aware that the trail is all too well-lit and the conclusion is too convenient a contribution to the narrative of a looming election; his reward for his awakening is to get fired. The film's subtlety lies in how Bizanti isn't at all oblivious to his personal corruption and culpability: on the contrary, he exults in it, seeing himself as the operator of an elaborate machine contributing to keep the worker suitably and obediently incentivized, and at the same time implicitly assuming that the worker understands and accepts his subjection to this calculated narcotic. Anyone who can't perceive (and it seems even appreciate, as one does a work of art) the workings of this system is merely a contemptible moron - including his wife, as he expresses in a memorably cruel outburst. In the end the truth is placed safely in storage, although with an understanding that it may be allowed to emerge in the future depending on the outcome of the election; the film ends on images of the Catholic church (by then degraded by an earlier deranged juxtaposition of the dead girl with the Virgin Mary) and then - amusingly if not subtly - on a river of garbage. Concise, dark and potent, the film might still be capable of inciting outrage, at least for a viewer still in possession of any sense of societal optimism.
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