Il commissario Lo Gatto (1986)

Commissioner Natale Lo Gatto is transferred to the island of Favignana as punishment for daring to ask Pope John Paul II for an alibi while investigating a murder committed in the Vatican. The first few months on the island pass without anything unusual happening, but as soon as the sweltering Sicilian summer begins, Wilma Cerulli suddenly disappears from her home in a holiday village. She is a young, wealthy woman with a shadowy past as a showgirl and influential connections. Given the copious traces of blood left on the floor of the house, it seems likely that she has been murdered. There is no shortage of possible motives, considering the turbulent love life of the missing woman, rife with envy and jealousy, which makes many of the people vacationing on the island suspects for various reasons. The commissioner, who is staying at a guesthouse run by the three Patanè sisters, begins his investigation with the help of the young officer Gridelli, who was transferred along with the commissioner, whom he admires and regards as his model both as a man and as a professional. A peculiar journalist, Vito Ragusa, also steps forward to help Lo Gatto, hoping in turn to advance his career by following an investigator with a promising future. After a long and fruitless investigation, it emerges that no murder took place and that the supposed victim is not only alive and well, but was in fact secretly aboard a Navy ship with the incumbent Prime Minister, having an extramarital fling. Lo Gatto and his superiors do everything they can to hush up what happened, but the news gets out and sparks a sensational scandal that brings down the government. The new Prime Minister, Giulio Andreotti, wants to reward the commissioner appropriately, since, after all, the uproar he caused around the affair is what allowed Andreotti to return to power. Promoted to deputy police commissioner and transferred to Milan along with Gridelli, Lo Gatto commits another spectacular blunder: during an international summit, he has the G7 leaders dive into a swimming pool to thwart an alleged imminent attack, having mistaken the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner for the barrel of a Kalashnikov. As a result, Lo Gatto is promoted to police chief and transferred once again to Sicily to fight the Mafia.