| The Palermo Connection | |
| Director: | Francesco Rosi |
| Producer: | Mario Cecchi Gori Vittorio Cecchi Gori |
| Music: | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography: | Pasqualino De Santis |
| Editing: | Ruggero Mastroianni |
| Starring: | Jim Belushi Mimi Rogers Joss Ackland Vittorio Gassman Philippe Noiret |
| Studio: | Cecchi Gori Group Reteitalia Gaumont |
| Distributor: | Penta Film (Italy) Gaumont (France) |
| Runtime: | 100 minutes |
| Country: | Italy France |
| Language: | English Italian |
| Gross: | $197,000 (Italy)[1] |
Dimenticare Palermo (Forgetting Palermo) is a 1990 Italian political thriller film starring Jim Belushi, directed by Francesco Rosi and co-written by Gore Vidal.[2] The film was released under the title The Palermo Connection in North America. The script is based on the Prix Goncourt winning novel Oublier Palerme (1966) by French author Edmonde Charles-Roux.
Carmine Bonavia is candidate for mayor of New York City on the issue of drug legalization. During the campaign he gets married and travels to his ancestral home of Sicily, for the honeymoon. In the hotel in Palermo he meets a Sicilian prince who has been confined there for years because he crossed the mafia. He discovers the beauties of the Italian island but is also framed by men of power, for a crime he did not commit. He discovers that those men will stop at nothing to prevent the legalization of drugs, which threatens their business, and is forced to decide between joining them or going to prison.