Work on Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina began with Sergio Donati (crime novel author and a screenwriter for [Sergio] Leone) as the screenwriter and director. According to production, Donati fell ill, but actually he and the producer mutually agreed he was not ready for directing yet, and so [Franco] Committeri set out to find someone else to take over the film. I said yes because I was interested in an experience of this kind: jumping on a train that was already moving, seeing what could be done working strictly as a professional, and transforming a film, which was originally a mystery about the journalism world in Milan, into a political one. I dragged [Goffredo] Fofi along with me, and we rapidly rewrote the script day by day as we were filming. The sets were the same as were most of the actors, but new roles were created, including Laura Betti’s key part, and the story became completely different.

Marco Bellocchio, Il cinema italiano d’oggi 1970-1984 raccontato dai suoi personaggi, edited by Franca Faldini and Goffredo Fofi, Mondadori, Milan 1984

Between 1971 and 1976, Bellocchio furthered his anti-institutional position with In the Name of the Father (1971), Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina and Victory March (1976)… In these three feature films, we detect an exploration of a new stylistic dimension that draws inspiration from analogous works by Ferreri, Petri, Rosi, Costa-Gavras and Damiani and aims to transcend them with a heightened level of political consciousness. This is especially noticeable in Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina, written in collaboration with Goffredo Fofi, a film telling a story alongside a series of real events that shook the country’s conscience at that time. References range from early terrorist episodes, such as the bombs at the Milan trade fair in 1969, or crime news (the death of Milena Sutter) to episodes of urban guerrilla warfare or traumatic events such as the Piazza Fontana bombing and the deaths of the anarchist Pinelli and the publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. Today, the film stands out as one of the most emblematic reflections of its era. Its value lies not only in its aesthetic or expressive qualities but also in its significant representativeness. Despite being a fictional work, it effectively communicates the social tension, increasing ideological fervour and the intense struggle between various organised, institutional and spontaneous forces.

Gian Piero Brunetta, Storia del cinema italiano. Dal miracolo economico agli anni novanta 1960-1993, vol. IV, Editori Riuniti, Rome 1993