As in his 1971 Festival film, The Conformist, in The Spider's Strategy, Bertolucci again tackles a political subject, this time about the unravelling of the mystery of a political assassination.

A young man arrives in a small town, where his father supposedly died in an assassination attempt on Mussolini, and was, after the war, consecrated as a war hero. He is welcomed by his father's mistress, from whom he learns part of the story; his father's three anti-Fascist friends tell him some further details, but the more he learns, the more convinced he becomes that the truth is being kept from him. He tries to see the erstwhile Fascist chief of the town, but is chased away by guards. He almost gives up his search when, in the last moment, he stumbles on the truth.