Orders Signed in White

"The organization has become a trap."

Luca "The Fisherman" Albanese (Gianni Manera) is the mastermind of a mafia-backed bank robbery in Rome, with associates Michael (Herb Andress), Teresa (Irina Maleeva) and Patrick (Enrico Manera) assigned to back him up. After the robbery, the thieves meet up with their girlfriends and flee to a safe house outside the city. But shortly after they arrive, one of the women turns up dead - strangled, with her face smeared in white paint. The group moves to a new location but the killer seems to follow, killing people off one by one and leaving a trail of painted corpses. Who is behind these killings? What is the motivation for these brutal slayings? And what message is he sending with the white paint? 

Orders Signed in White is a highly ambitious movie that tackles the lofty themes of justice, the meaning of loyalty and the insidious, pervasive nature of corruption. Unfortunately, it's also a poorly-made film that takes itself way too seriously, with a convoluted script that undermines all of its ambitions. Despite a pre-credits disclaimer stating that police and legal experts were consulted on the script for maximum authenticity, one gets the impression that the filmmakers got all their information about the mafia from 1940's gangster flicks. The dramatic and action aspects of the film might fall flat, but strangely, it works as a giallo - we get a classic black-gloved killer with a unique signature and some of the craziest moments the genre has to offer. If that sounds good to you and you have some patience for a lot of extra nonsense, give it a spin.

• Director Gianni Manera plays Luca and his brother, Enrico Manera, plays Patrick. They also co-wrote the screenplay together.

• Before the credits and before the disclaimer, the film begins with a poetic message, describing the mafia as threads, reaching out in all directions, forming a tapestry of corruption and crime. 

• The music for this film was done by the great Carlo Savina, whose work you might remember from The Killer Reserved Nine Seats and Naked Girl Murdered in the Park, among others. He gets a nice shout-out in the movie when Luca is listening to the radio in the car.

• Irina Maleeva, who plays Teresa, went on to a long career and appeared as a day player on American TV shows, such as The Gilmore Girls, Heroes and Angel. She also had a recurring role on The Bold and the Beautiful.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

I get the strong impression that a major motivation for making this movie was to write off vacations as business expenses. Luca flies from Rome to Paris to meet up with Teresa on the Eiffel Tower, with a lot of B-roll footage of French tourist spots in between. Then, the pair travel by train back to Rome to pull off the heist.

 

Later, Luca has a dream sequence which includes him and his friends skiing at a resort in the Austrian Alps. This obviously has nothing to do with anything in the movie and was almost certainly included in the final edit for tax purposes.

The car crash scene is actually fantastic. They had at least three different cameras going during the stunt and they used all the footage from each one. It includes a very satisfying explosion.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

Let's get to it and discuss one of the wildest scenes in the giallo canon, which occurs late in the movie. Our group of gangsters is down to four: Luca, Patrick, Lucia and Teresa, who all take a walk to the top of a high cliff overlooking a village. Acting out a dramatic scene in the movie he wants to make with his cut of the heist money, Patrick lunges at Luca, who casually steps out of the way, causing Patrick to careen down the cliff to his death. As the women are horrified and shocked, Luca shoves both of them over the edge as well. Then he steps back and delivers a tearful monologue, ranting to the heavens about being trapped in his fealty to the mafia. It is absolutely bonkers and comes like a one-two punch out of nowhere. What's even crazier is that with all the characters except Luca now dead, we still have about 10 more minutes of movie left to watch before everything gets tied up.

Fashion Moment:

When I saw the ladies waiting for the robbers in a getaway car, I had high hopes for the costumes in this movie.

But then for the rest of the film everyone dressed like extras on the set of Guys & Dolls.

Special point of interest: After the heist, the robbers abandon their getaway car at the foot of one of Rome's most famous modern buildings - the "Colosseo Quadrato," a noted example of Brutalist architecture from the Mussolini regime and current home to Fendi's corporate offices. It's also the site of the final scene in Fatal Frames which is a film that makes a lot less sense than this one but is way more fun to watch.