An obvious homage to the film noirs of the 40s and 50s, The Parioli Street Murders has all the trappings, from the femme fatale, the suspicious secretary, the prominently featured detective’s office, to the dozy detective who gets dragged into events that are way beyond his control.

Director Antonio Bonifacio manages to work some good performances out of his leads, the neon cinematography is in keeping with the Argento aesthetics everyone seemed to be aping in the 1990s – and the funky soundtrack is just as pleasantly dated.

I should point out that the Parioli district in Rome is one of the more affluent areas of the city.

La Repubblica article following various film shoots in Rome during August 1997 – Il Delitto di Via Monti Parioli is mentioned in the penultimate paragraph (link)

“On this last set the coexistence with the inhabitants of the neighbourhood also had some moments of tension involving water balloons. Explicitly Roman right down to the title, Il Delitto di via Monti Parioli is a film directed by Antonio Bonifacio. It’s a satirical detective story where the protagonist Luca Lionello is, as he defines himself, “a half-private detective”, halfway between Marlowe and Tomas Milian’s Inspector Monezza. The plot is decidedly noir, complete with a femme fatale played by Katarina Vassilissa, with supporting roles from Veronika Logan and Salvatore Marino. There is no shortage of deaths and murderers but this one is played more for laughs than screams.”

Availability

As far as I can tell, this is another film which may or may not have been screened in cinemas due to an overwhelming lack of any kind of promotional materials online. I suspect it had a very brief theatrical run before being released on VHS…