Hands Over the City

Rod Steiger is ferocious as a scheming land developer in Francesco Rosi's Hands Over the City, a blistering work of social realism and the winner of the 1963 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion. This expose of the politically driven real-estate speculation that has devastated Naples's civilian landscape moves breathlessly from a cataclysmic building collapse to the backroom negotiations of civic leaders vying for power in a city council election, laying bare the inner workings of corruption with passion and outrage.


Overview
A corrupt city councilman seeks a huge profit in a suburban real estate deal. Nottola (Rod Steiger) manipulates corrupt local government officials in the political instability that plagues Italy following World War II. The only councilman who tries to block the shady deals in defense of the people is the lone Communist elected to the board. The only insight on the characters is shown by the political machinations undertaken and the final result of the new zoning laws that followed the tangle of secret deals, bribes and blackmail.