I've always wanted to go to Sicily, but this tale of the law and the mafia clashing has now made me fear that an old woman might call me a whore from the window a passing car. Just outside of a sleep Sicilian town, a construction manager is ambushed in his truck and shot dead while trying to escape. The assassin is spotted by a local man, and we forsee the problems the police are going to have as we as the audience witness people purposefully ignoring the corpse until a member of the Caribinieri forces the driver of the bus he is on to stop. New hot-shot police Captain Franco Nero is straight on the case, being new to Sicily and naïve about the way things work there. He knows that the local Godfather Don Mariano (Lee Cobb) is behind it all, but in front of him there are endless underlings, hit men, liars and even the general public covering things up. It's all to do with building contracts for a new road, but how can Nero stop them when even the dead man's brothers are reluctant to help?Hope lies in the shape of Claudia Cardinale, because it was her husband that witnessed the murder, but then again the husband has gone missing. Rumour and lies fly about the place trying Claudia's husband to the killing, claiming that Claudia had made him a cuckold. Claudia is adamant that she has been faithful to her husband, but what can one woman do against the might of the mafia, and their strange 'sweety wife' tactics that turn the public against her. Those heading here from Andrea Bianchi's mental Cry of A Prostitute or Enzo Castellari's Big Racket will be wondering "Where's all the gunfights, car chases, and bitch slapping?", but they needn't worry. Yes, the only shots fired are at the start of the film, and the film is nearly two hours long, but the plot and the acting of those involved drew me into the story. Franco Nero comes across as a young, naïve and ambitious cop who will stop at nothing to get the biggest catch, but his faults also gradually start to shine through and erase his self-confidence. I'd say Claudia Cardinale stands out the most though, as the desperate mother who doesn't even know if her husband is still alive, with even the police trying to manipulate her, out on her own just trying to tell the truth. Lee Cobb was also good as the over-confident Mafia boss who struts around in front of the police like a rooster with his first hard-on.Throw in a whole cast of supporting actors who also stand out and you've got an ever unfolding drama set in the sun that just shows you how difficult a job the police have in rooting out the mafia in Sicily. Damiano Damiani proves once again that he's a solid director. No trash here people.

THE DAY OF THE OWL is a stylish and early 'polizia' film from Italy, made a few years before the Euro-crime genre really got going. It starts off with an arresting murder sequence which shows off director Damiano Damiani's considerable style before moving into a character-focused battle of wills between police and gangsters.This is a low-key and realistic affair that eschews action and explosions in favour of nitty-gritty police work and characterisation. Thus those hoping for thrills and excitement would be better off looking elsewhere as THE DAY OF THE OWL goes much deeper and is more of a mature and reflective work as a result. Franco Nero does well as the hard-nosed cop (a role he would play over and over again through the years) while Lee J. Cobb is a perfect fit as the mafia don.As ever, Claudia Cardinale lights up the screen with her arresting beauty every time she appears, and she has an important role to boot. The real star of the show is Damiani, a man who brought style to whatever film he made - from high-star classics to cult horror like AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION.

Damiano Damiani was an expert in Mafia movies. Confessions of a Police Captain (1971), L'istruttoria è Chiusa: dimentichi (1971), How to Kill a Judge (1975), I Am Afraid (1977),The Warning (1980), The Octopus(1984) are just some of its excellent movies. Mafia(Il Giorno Della Civetta) is one of the best. The actors are all impeccable, brilliant. Claudia Cardinale is more beautiful and compelling as ever. Lee J. Cobb is a great actor. Tano Cimarosa is downright incredible. Franco Nero, Serge Reggiani, Nehemiah Persoff, are very good. Great music also by Giovanni Fusco. A very good film, from all points of view.

I keep getting pulled into these film adaptations of Leonardo Sciascia's novels and I never cease to wonder at their fine quality. Sciascia was an Italian novelist from Sicily, famous for being one of the first writers to openly write about the Mafia, a subject that in the early '60s was still prickly, in fact many still denied the Mafia existed when The Day of the Owl was published in 1961. Today this criminal organization is an incontrovertible fact, which perhaps affects the impact this film adaptation has on modern viewers.I would still heartily recommend this movie to fans of the crime genre on the simple fact it remains a gripping and well-written crime drama. Franco Nero plays Bellodi, a police captain recently transferred to Sicily, where he's slowly learning the ropes. Full of new ideas and a passionate attitude, he tries to rip the veil of silence that covers Mafia hits when the owner of a construction company shows up murdered. As always everyone denies having seen anything. His only possible witness is a man who lives in a house nearby the murder scene; but he's nowhere to be found, and his wife, Rosa (played by Claudia Cardinale), doesn't know where he's gone to.Bellodi not only has to investigate a murder that leads to one of the most important men in the town, Don Marino (played by Lee J. Cobb), the local Mafia don, but he also has to untangle the truth from the lies surrounding the case, since the Mafia tries to hide the true motives of the murder by making it look like a crime of passion involving Rosa, the victim and Rosa's wayward husband – in that society honour can be conveniently used to cover up all crimes.Nero, Cardinale and Cobb are excellent, and the other actors, mainly unknown Italian actors, do a great job bringing the movie to life too. The movie doesn't have a boring moment, and the intellectual conflict between Bellodi and Don Mariano is gripping. The movie, being one of the first ones to tackle the Mafia, uses many tropes that since then have become trademarks of the genre – the cop willing to bend the rules a little for justice, for instance, but more importantly the sense that the Mafia is an unbeatable opponent, too rich and powerful ever to be brought down. Compared to American movies, this one is quite pessimistic, but then again the Mafia in America is not half as chilling as it is in Italy and Sicily.