Il gatto

Il gatto (internationally released as The Cat) is a 1977 Italian giallo-comedy film directed by Luigi Comencini. For this film, Mariangela Melato was awarded with a David di Donatello for Best Actress. Plot Amedeo Pegoraro (Ugo Tognazzi) and his sister Ofelia (Mariangela Melato) are the greedy dual landlords of a run-down apartment building with few tenants left. The siblings are constantly fighting. Due to a real estate company offering one billion lira for the building on the condition that it has no tenants, Amedeo and Ofelia harass and spy on their tenants to goad them into leaving, or find justification to evict them. Amedeo is drawn to, but refuses the advances of, Wanda Yukovich (Dalila Di Lazzaro), a young and attractive secretary who works for Legrand (Jean Martin), a corrupt businessman. Amedeo and Ofelia find their pet cat dead, which was disliked by many tenants for its mischief. The siblings begin to investigate the death of the cat, hoping to evict the culprit; meanwhile, Police Commissioner Francisci (Michel Galabru) becomes more and more exasperated by their antics. Amedeo suspects The Princess (Adriana Innocenti) due to gunshots being fired at the cat and her being experienced with firearms; after reporting this to the police, her apartment is raided and revealed to be an illegal brothel. After no gunshot wounds are found on the cat's body, Amedeo searches the apartment of a group of musicians while Ofelia unsuccessfully tries to seduce the priest Don Pezzolla (Philippe Leroy). After discovering cocaine, Amedeo reports the musicians to the Guardia di Finanza, leading to their arrest for drug trafficking. While investigating the apartment of Don Vito Garofalo, a mafia boss, Amedeo discovers bloodstains, and he and Ofelia follow two suspicious men who were in the apartment. After finding a corpse in the trunk of the two men's car, the siblings follow them to a beachfront home owned by a male politician who was in a relationship with Salvatore (Aldo Reggiani), Don Garofalo's gay butler. There, the two men dump Salvatore's body, attempting to frame the murder as a crime of passion. Ofelia writes anonymous threatening letters to the remaining tenants that state that 'we know your secret', which is seen as an empty threat by most of the tenants, but Paul Herdigher, an American journalist, takes it seriously and commits suicide.