Jean-Luis Trintignant	Marcello Clerici
Stefania Sandrelli	Giulia
Dominique Sanda	Anna Quadri
Enzo Tarascio	the teacher Quadri
Pierre Clementi	Lino Seminara
Gastone Moschin	Manganiello
José Quaglio	Italo
Milly	Marcello's mother
Giuseppe Addobbati	Marcello's father
Yvonne Sanson	Giulia's mother
Fosco Giachetti	the colonel
Benedetto Benedetti	the minister
Christian Alegny	Raoul
Gino Vagni	Luca
Antonio Maestri
Christian Belegue
Pasquale Fortunato
Marta Lado
Pierangelo Civera
Carlo Gadda
Franco Pellerani
Claudio Cappelli
Umberto Silvestri

Marcello Clerici (Trintignant) axcepts to go to Paris on the behalf of the fascist political police: he has to approach one of the most known antifascist refugees, the teacher Quadri (Tarascio), his old university teacher, and to prepare his assassination. Drawn by the homonym Alberto Moravia’s novel adapted by the same Bertolucci, the film, all centered on the order’s aspiration and on the conformism as compensation of an unavowed and repressed homosexuality, faces in a very personal way the complex knot of relationship between fascism and middle class: Marcello’s ambiguity, his want to kill his own ideal father, the view of mean wonen and ruthless characters that accompany the trip to Paris (recalled with a beautiful nostalgic taste) lead to read in fascism the black part of the middle class, its “sick” temptation, in eternal struggle with the healthy part (here the antifascism). An interpretation that in those times got to the director more than an incomprehension and of which, it is necessary to add, Bertolucci “suffers the enchantment more than he doesn’t seem to analyze it and to dig up it”. First commercial succes of the director. The uncut edition, shown only at the 1970 Berlin festival and restored in 1993, lasts 10’ more. (P. Merghetti “Dizionario dei film1998”, translated by Alice Castoldi)