''Counselor at Crime'' ( it, Il consigliori, also known as ''The Counsellor'') is a 1973 Italian-Spanish

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

directed by

Alberto De Martino Alberto De Martino (12 June 1929 – 2 June 2015) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Born in Rome, De Martino started as a child actor and later returned to the cinema where worked as a screenwriter, director and dubbing supervis ...

and starring

Tomas Milian Tomas Milian (born Tomás Quintín Rodríguez-Varona Milián Salinas de la Fé y Álvarez de la Campa; 3 March 1933 – 22 March 2017) was a Cuban-born actor and singer with American and Italian citizenship, known for the emotional intensity and ...

Martin Balsam Martin Henry Balsam (November 4, 1919 – February 13, 1996) was an American actor. He had a prolific career in character roles in film, in theatre, and on television. An early member of the Actors Studio, he began his career on the New ...

and

Francisco Rabal Francisco Rabal Valera (8 March 1926 – 29 August 2001), better known as Paco Rabal, was a Spanish actor, director, and screenwriter born in Águilas, a town in the south-western part of the province of Murcia, Spain. Throughout his career, Raba ...

Cast

: Thomas Accardo *

: Don Antonio Macaluso *

: Vincent Garofalo *

Dagmar Lassander Dagmar Lassander (born as Dagmar Regine Hager on 16 June 1943) is a German actress. The character of Lassander Dagmar in the Italian-influenced 2015 horror film '' We Are Still Here'' is named after her. Early life and career She was born in ...

: Laura Murchison *

Perla Cristal Perla Cristal (born September 29, 1937) is an Argentine actress and vedette and singer who began her career in her native country, with incursions into Hollywood and Spanish and Italian cinema. She settled in Spain in the early 1960s and contin ...

: Dorothy *

Carlo Tamberlani Carlo Tamberlani (11 March 1899 – 5 August 1980) was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 127 films between 1931 and 1976. He was born in Salice Salentino, Italy and died in Subiaco, Italy. His brother Nando Tamberlani was also an actor. ...

: Don Michele Villabate *

Manuel Zarzo Manuel López Zarza (born 26 April 1932) better known as Manuel Zarzo is a Spanish film actor. He has appeared in more than 150 films since 1951. Selected filmography * '' Day by Day'' (1951) * '' Love in a Hot Climate'' (1954) * ''Cursed Mo ...

: Dorsiello *

John Anderson John Anderson may refer to: Business *John Anderson (Scottish businessman) (1747–1820), Scottish merchant and founder of Fermoy, Ireland * John Byers Anderson (1817–1897), American educator, military officer and railroad executive, mentor of ...

: Don Vito Albanese *

Sacheen Littlefeather Marie Louise Cruz (November 14, 1946 – October 2, 2022), better known as Sacheen Littlefeather, was an American actress, model, and activist on behalf of Native American civil rights. Littlefeather represented Marlon Brando at the 45th Aca ...

: Maggie *

George Rigaud Pedro Jorge Rigato Delissetche,George Rigaud

: Priest *

Eduardo Fajardo Eduardo Martínez Fajardo (14 August 1924 – 4 July 2019) was a Spanish film actor born in Meis (Pontevedra), Spain. He appeared in 183 films, 75 plays and made 2,000 television appearances between 1947 and 2002. Biography He was born in ...

: Calogero Vezza *

Nello Pazzafini Nello Pazzafini (15 May 1933 – 9 January 1996) was an Italian actor who appeared in a very large number of Peplum movies, Spaghetti Westerns and Poliziotteschi. He was an ex-bodyguard and often played a "tough guy" character. Partial filmog ...

: Killer in

Polizzi Generosa Polizzi Generosa ( Sicilian: ''Pulizzi'') is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Palermo on the island of Sicily, southern Italy. The town sits in the hills at above sea level. History The site of Polizzi shows signs of human o ...

Production

''Counselor at Crime'' was filmed at Cinecitta in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, Estudios Cinematograficos in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and on location in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

Palermo Palermo ( , ; scn, Palermu , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan ...

and

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

. The cinematography was done by

Joe D'Amato Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (westerns, decamerotici, peplum, war films, ...

, who was credited under his birthname Aristide Massaccesi. Director

Alberto de Martino Alberto De Martino (12 June 1929 – 2 June 2015) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Born in Rome, De Martino started as a child actor and later returned to the cinema where worked as a screenwriter, director and dubbing supervis ...

spoke positively on working with D'Amato, stating that he "didn't talk nonsense, he knew how to do his job, and he was quick. It took him a couple of seconds to understand how to light a scene. And whenever he was in trouble with the lighting, he would take the camera in his own hands". De Martino admitted to having trouble during the screenwriting of the film, stating that he initially wrote the script with his collaborators. They later hired Leonardo Martin to write another part and when they gave the script to producer Edmondo Amati, he stated that it was alright but wanted the dialogue to be revised by his friend Michael Gazzo. A month later, Gazzo sent him a script that was entirely re-written. De Martino also spoke about

, stating that he "cast her in Rome a couple of months before shooting started. She'd just had a baby and I told her she had to lose weight. She said 'Of course, one month's a long time!". When arriving in Albuquerque, she had not lost the weight and De Martino kept her in the film as he would not be able to find a replacement.

Release

''Counselor at Crime'' was released in Italy on August 30, 1973 where it was distributed by Fida Cinematografica. The film grossed a total of 685,486,000

Italian lire The lira (; plural lire) was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. It was first introduced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy in 1807 at par with the French franc, and was subsequently adopted by the different states that would eventually f ...

in Italy.

Footnotes

References

External links