Director: Elio Petri - Story and Screenplay: Elio Petri, Ugo Pirro - Director of photography (Eastmancolor): Luigi Kuveiller - Film editor: Ruggero Mastroianni - Sound editor: Mario Bramonti - Production design: Dante Ferretti - Assistants director Antonio Gabrielli, Franco Longo - Camera operator: Ubaldo Terzano - Costume design: Franco Carretti – Set decoration: Carlo Gervasi - Trade union advisor: Mario Bartolini – First assistant camera: Antonio Annunziata – Chief electrician: Sergio Coletta - Chief cameraman: Sergio Emidi - General Organization: Claudio Mancini – Original Music:Ennio Morricone (directed by Bruno Nicolai)- Production: Euro International Films –Executive producer: Ugo Tucci – Awards: Golden Palm at Cannes Film Festival in 1972 – Country: Italy - Running time: 110’

Cast: Gian Maria Volonté (Lulù Massa), Mariangela Melato (Lidia), Mietta Albertini (Adalgisa), Salvo Randone (Militina), Gino Pernice (Syndacalist), Renata Zamengo (Maria), Luigi Diberti (Bassi), Donato Castellaneta (Marx), Giuseppe Fortis (Valli), Corrado Solari, Ezio Marano (Timekeeper), Adriano Amidei Migliano (Technician), Federico Scrobogna (Arturo), Antonio Mangano, Lorenzo Magnolia, Guerrino Crivello, Albero Fogliani, Carla Mancini, Orazio Stracuzzi, Marisa Rossi, Renzo Varallo, Eugenio Fatti, Flavio Bucci, Luigi Uzzo, Giovanni Bignamini

The film:

"Jean Marie Straub, at Porretta Terme festival, talking about La classe operaia said that a film like this must be burnt. I told the story that was everyone story, and how, in this society, you can only live in an alienation status. The connection between the existential and the productive time in a worker, is clearly the most dramatic aspect of his day, and I especially deal with that."

[Elio Petri, in Paola Pegoraro Petri (curated by), Lucidità inquieta. Il cinema di Elio Petri, Museo Nazionale del Cinema, Torino 2007, p. 112]

The film restoration:

The copy was reprinted at the laboratory in Cinecittà, based on a reversal belonging to the CSC - Cineteca Nazionale. The original negative of the film has not been found and a duplicate negative of the film was used for the restoration. This duplicate was made by means of a technical procedure, which today is no longer used, that skipped one step by printing from the original negative directly onto invertible film. Even though the resulting material has fairly high definition, it often presents fluctuations in color and dominant doubles that tend to alter the original coloring. Today, efforts are made to recuperate the original tone and density of the color through digital technology.
The reprinted copy was presented in 2008 during the 26th Torino Film Festival.

The preservation was carried out by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema di Torino, the Cineteca Nazionale di Roma and by the Minerva Rarovideo Group, with the supervision of Luigi Kuveiller, director of photography.

The preservation of the film is part of a project to valorize the works by Petri, including cataloging and making available archival material belonging to the director, which was donated by his wife Paola to the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in 2007.

The Minerva RaroVideo Group published a DVD of the restored film.

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