Director: Sergiu Nicolaescu
Stars: Amza Pellea, Gheorghe Dinica, Ion Besoiu
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
Country: Romania
The Iron Guard, also known as Legion of Archangel Michael, was a Romanian nationalist and patriotic movement of extreme right; as such, after it rose to power, it supported Nazi Germany and started a fierce campaign of retaliation against its political enemies. As such, in the night of November 26-27, 1940, the Death Teams executed forty political prisoners in the Jilava prison (in the movie, named “Viraga”), and next day, other two Teams arrested and shot the former minister Virgil Madgearu and the world famous historian Nicolae Iorga (in the movie: Costin Märgeanu and Nicolae Jugu). To squash down the political outcry, the Police Prefect Stefan Zävoianu (Visan Nävodeanu) conveniently assigns the cases to a commissioner from the “Morals Division” (prostitution, thieves), Tudor Moldovan, hoping that he will fail to get to the bottom of the case.