The Spider's Stratagem

The Spider's Stratagem

The Spider's Stratagem

Share

The Spider's Stratagem

1970

1h 40m

7.0(94 votes)

Mystery

Drama

Overview

A young man returns to his countryside hometown to investigate the unclear circumstances behind the death of his father, ostensibly killed by Fascists in 1936, before his birth. As he unravels a web of lies that seems to encompass the whole town, he finds himself entangled in the same web.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

RAI

The people behind it

Cast & crew

6 featured cast members

Starring

Giulio Brogi

Giulio Brogi

Athos Magnani Jr. / Athos Magnani Sr.

Alida Valli

Alida Valli

Draifa

Pippo Campanini

Gaibazzi

Franco Giovanelli

Razori

Tino Scotti

Tino Scotti

Costa

Allen Midgette

Allen Midgette

Sailor (uncredited)

Creative team

Directed by: Bernardo Bertolucci
Written by: Marilù Parolini
Bernardo Bertolucci
Produced by: Giovanni Bertolucci

Similar Movies

The Sweet Hereafter

The Sweet Hereafter

A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.

High Tension

High Tension

Best friends Marie and Alexia decide to spend a quiet weekend at Alexia's parents' secluded farmhouse. But on the night of their arrival, the girls' idyllic getaway turns into an endless night of horror.

Homecoming

Homecoming

Madde lives a hectic life in Stockholm. One day she receives a letter from her father Leif who wants her to come back to her childhood home. An intense weekend with her father changes her attitude to the rural area she left a long time ago.

Flesh and Bone

Flesh and Bone

Haunted by memories of his father murdering a family, Arlis Sweeney prefers to keep to himself, focusing his energy on his work. One day, the traumatic past that eats away at him returns when he meets Kay Davies, a woman connected to the bloody event. Against all odds, Arlis and Kay fall in love; however, when his father, Roy, reappears in his life -- with the coldhearted Ginnie in tow -- Arlis must deal with his past demons.

The Cure

The Cure

A small town begins to feel the effects of an illness, forcing the local pastor to make an ethical decision that will affect the habitants of the place.

Yoshino's Barber Shop

Yoshino's Barber Shop

In a small town on the countryside, every young boy is forced to have the same bowl-head haircut known as the "Yoshino-gari" hairstyle. Then one day, a drastic change occurs when a transfer student with bleached hair comes from Tokyo.

Rosewood

Rosewood

Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923.

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue

The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue

When a series of murders hit the remote English countryside, a detective suspects a pair of travelers when it is actually the work of the undead, jarred back to life by an experimental ultra-sonic radiation machine used by the Ministry of Agriculture to kill insects.

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael

Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael

Movie star Roxy Carmichael is abandoning the bright lights of Hollywood, Calif. and returning to her small Ohio hometown -- at least long enough to dedicate a city building. And now the whole town of Clyde is bracing for Carmichael's return, most of all her now-married old flame Denton Webb and troubled teen Dinky Bossetti. An orphan with few friends, Dinky is convinced that Carmichael is her birth mother, and that the actress will reclaim her when she returns.

Bite Fight

Bite Fight

Turning into a vampire was never the plan. Falling for the one who bit him? Even worse, especially when the past comes calling.

Maaman

Maaman

An uncle's deep connection with his nephew is broken, when their family experiences personal differences.

Brats, Be Ambitious!

Brats, Be Ambitious!

A countryside in 1988. Shun is crazy about fooling around with his best friends. Facing up with their family environment or bullying in school, they struggle against the problems in their adolescents.

The Girl

The Girl

Story of a ten-year-old girl left alone in her house in the summer of 1981.

Hate Crime

Hate Crime

Robbie Levinson and Trey McCoy suddenly encounter intolerance and hostility at the hands of their new neighbor, Chris Boyd, the son of a fundamentalist preacher.

The Vicious Kind

The Vicious Kind

A man tries to warn his brother away from the new girlfriend he brings home during Thanksgiving, but ends up becoming infatuated with her in the process.

The Wedding Photographer

The Wedding Photographer

When the factory in Molkom shuts down, Robin leaves his beloved hometown to try his luck in Stockholm as a wedding photographer. This experience changes not merely his outlook on life but also his hairstyle.

Wildrose

Wildrose

June Lorich works at the Mesabi Mine on Minnesota's iron range. After an emotionally and physically abusive marriage, June is determined to make it on her own. But the worsening steel industry forces major cutbacks and June is bumped down to an all-male pit. She becomes the brunt of the other workers' hostilities and is forced to fight against them -- and the man she loves -- to save her job.

National Velvet

National Velvet

Mi Taylor is a young wanderer and opportunist who finds himself in the quiet English countryside home of the Brown family. The youngest daughter, Velvet, has a passion for horses and when she wins the spirited steed Pie in a town lottery, Mi is encouraged to train the horse.

Powder Blue

Powder Blue

On the gritty streets of LA, the destinies of four people desperate for connection and redemption are about to collide.

Under Milk Wood

Under Milk Wood

An all star cast unite to perform a distinctive BBC Wales Television adaptation of Dylan Thomas's radio play, presented in collaboration with National Theatre Wales, to mark the centenary of Dylan Thomas' birth. The plot reveals the innermost thoughts of the residents of the small, Welsh fishing village Llareggub as it delves into the dreams of various townspeople including blind sailor Captain Cat, who is haunted by visions of drowned shipmates, Mog Edwards and Myfanwy Price, who dream of each other, and Mrs. Ogmore Pritchard, who dreams of her former husbands.

Recommended Movies

Oedipus Rex

Oedipus Rex

In pre-war Italy, a young couple have a baby boy. The father, however, is jealous of his son - and the scene moves to antiquity, where the baby is taken into the desert to be killed. He is rescued, given the name Oedipus, and brought up by the King and Queen of Corinth as their son. One day an oracle informs Oedipus that he is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Horrified, he flees Corinth and his supposed parents - only to get into a fight and kill an older man on the road…

Agatha and the Truth of Murder

Agatha and the Truth of Murder

England, December 1926. Although her personal life is in tatters, the famous writer Agatha Christie decides to leave everything behind to help unravel an unsolved murder committed on a train six years ago, unable to imagine the disproportionate consequences that such a selfless act will cause.

The Girl in the Fog

The Girl in the Fog

A gripping and chilling thriller that brings us to a hazy mountain village where an enigmatic detective is investigating the sudden disappearance of fifteen-year-old girl.

In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night

African-American Philadelphia police detective Virgil Tibbs is arrested on suspicion of murder by Bill Gillespie, the racist police chief of tiny Sparta, Mississippi. After Tibbs proves not only his own innocence but that of another man, he joins forces with Gillespie to track down the real killer. Their investigation takes them through every social level of the town, with Tibbs making enemies as well as unlikely friends as he hunts for the truth.

Inferno

Inferno

After waking up in a hospital with amnesia, professor Robert Langdon and a doctor must race against time to foil a deadly global plot.

Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express

Genius Belgian detective Hercule Poirot investigates the murder of an American tycoon aboard the Orient Express train.

Intrusion

Intrusion

When a husband and wife move to a small town, a home invasion leaves the wife traumatized and suspicious that those around her might not be who they seem.

Kept Woman

Kept Woman

Jessica and her fiancé Evan have just moved from the city into their dream home on a quiet suburban street. Soon after, Jessica catches her seemingly friendly new neighbor, Simon, in a strange lie and can't let her suspicions rest. The danger escalates when Simon lures her inside his home and imprisons Jessica in his secret bunker, meticulously decorated in the idealized style of the 1950s.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia

Felice returns to his native Rione Sanità in Naples to look after his dying mother, having lived abroad for the last forty years. Here he discovers that his old friend Oreste has become a notorious crimeboss.

Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy Theory

A man obsessed with conspiracy theories becomes a target after one of his theories turns out to be true. Unfortunately, in order to save himself, he has to figure out which theory it is.

Evil Under the Sun

Evil Under the Sun

An opulent beach resort provides a scenic background to this amusing whodunit as Poirot attempts to uncover the nefarious evildoer behind the strangling of a notorious stage star.

The Secret Life of Bees

The Secret Life of Bees

Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and only friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes

Eccentric consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson battle to bring down a new nemesis and unravel a deadly plot that could destroy England.

Insomnia

Insomnia

Two Los Angeles homicide detectives are dispatched to a northern town where the sun doesn't set to investigate the methodical murder of a local teen.

Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt

In sleepy Santa Rosa, restless young Charlie’s world brightens when her sophisticated Uncle Charlie arrives for a long visit. But as his behavior grows increasingly strange, she begins to suspect that her beloved uncle may be hiding a terrible secret—and that danger has quietly entered her home.

Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express

In 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.

The Third Man

The Third Man

In postwar Vienna, Austria, Holly Martins, a writer of pulp Westerns, arrives penniless as a guest of his childhood chum Harry Lime, only to learn he has died. Martins develops a conspiracy theory after learning of a "third man" present at the time of Harry's death, running into interference from British officer Major Calloway, and falling head-over-heels for Harry's grief-stricken lover, Anna.

Hamlet

Hamlet

Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor, Sir Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet continues to be the most compelling version of Shakespeare’s beloved tragedy. Olivier is at his most inspired—both as director and as the melancholy Dane himself—as he breathes new life into the words of one of the world’s greatest dramatists.

TalhotBlond

TalhotBlond

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

I'm Not Scared

I'm Not Scared

In a tiny community enclosed by wheat fields, the adults shelter indoors, while six children venture out on their bikes across the scorched, deserted countryside. Exploring a dilapidated and uninhabited farmhouse, nine-year-old Michele discovers a secret so momentous, so terrible, that he dares not tell anyone about it...