I've seen 1971's CONFESSIONS OF A POLICE CAPTAIN a couple of times now and it's slowly become one of my favorite Eurotrash mafia/crime dramas. This effort from a couple of years later stars two of the same fellows from that epic, Franco Nero and Martin Balsam, and some of the synopsis' I've read of this make it sound awfully similar. In some ways it is, Nero plays a very similar character though Balsam this time trades in his police chief role for that of the head of a crime family and really isn't in the movie a whole lot. The movie mostly focuses on corruption within the justice system and unfortunately is mostly filled with endless talky-talk scenes with very little of anything exciting happening. There is one scene, that I guess gave the English-dubbers their title, where a gal is raped by a couple of goofy fellas or "smiling maniacs" if you will but in the version I've seen even that bit isn't all that graphic or crazy. The original Italian title of this translates as CORRUPTION IN A PALACE OF JUSTICE and that is way more fitting since this is really a way more dull version of Nero & Franco's later excellent team-up and that other name is super misleading.
The soundtrack is sometimes the best thing about these Eurocrime flicks:
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