The Rosary Murders is a 1987

1987 in film

-Events:*January 31 - The Cure for Insomnia premieres at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois, to officially become the world's longest film according to Guinness World Records....

 neo-noir

Neo-noir

Neo-noir is a style often seen in modern motion pictures and other forms that prominently utilize elements of film noir, but with updated themes, content, style, visual elements or media that were absent in films noir of the 1940s and 1950s.-History:The term Film Noir was coined by...

 mystery film

Mystery film

Mystery film is a sub-genre of the more general category of crime film and at times the thriller genre. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of a crime by means of clues, investigation, and clever deduction.The...

 starring Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland

Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...

 as Father Koesler, based upon the novel by William X. Kienzle

William X. Kienzle

William X. Kienzle was born in Detroit, Michigan. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1954 and spent twenty years as a Roman Catholic parish priest. Kienzle left the priesthood in 1974 because of his disagreement with its refusal to remarry divorcees...

.

The story involves a series of murders in which the victims are all either Roman Catholic priests or nuns, each of whom is found with a black rosary

Rosary

The rosary or "garland of roses" is a traditional Catholic devotion. The term denotes the prayer beads used to count the series of prayers that make up the rosary...

. Father Koesler goes in search of the murderer but is caught in a quandary when the murderer confesses the crimes to him. He is unable to break the seal of confession by going to the police.

Jack White

Jack White (musician)

Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...

 has an uncredited role in the film as an altar server. The film was shot in Detroit, Michigan

Detroit, Michigan

Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...

 at Holy Redeemer parish, a century old Roman Catholic church on Detroit's Southwest side.

Main cast

• Donald Sutherland
  Donald Sutherland
  Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
  
   - Father Bob Koesler
• Charles Durning
  Charles Durning
  Charles Durning is an American actor. With appearances in over 100 films, Durning's memorable roles include police officers in the Oscar-winning The Sting and crime drama Dog Day Afternoon , along with the comedies Tootsie, To Be Or Not To Be and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the last two...
  
   - Father Ted Nabors
• Josef Sommer
  Josef Sommer
  Josef Sommer is an American film actor.He was born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald, Germany and was raised in North Carolina, the son of Elisabeth and Clemons Sommer, a professor of art history at the University of North Carolina. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology...
  
   - Lt. Walt Kosnicki
• Belinda Bauer - Pat Lennon
• James Murtaugh
  James Murtaugh
  James Murtaugh is an American film and television actor. He is known for his rich and distinctive voice and was for years the television spokesperson for A1 Steak Sauce. Murtaugh is also a member of the Off-Broadway theater company TACT .-External links:...
  
   - Javison
• Addison Powell
  Addison Powell
  Addison Powell was an American actor whose numerous television, stage and film credits included Dark Shadows, The Thomas Crown Affair and Three Days of the Condor. He was best known for playing Dr. Eric Lang, a mad scientist who created Adam, on Dark Shadows.Powell was born in 1921 in Belmont,...
  
   - Father Killeen
• Anita Barone
  Anita Barone
  Anita Louise Barone is an American actress. She is best known for co-starring roles in sitcoms The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Daddio and The War at Home.-Life and career:Barone was born in St. Louis, Missouri...
  
   - Irene Jimenez
• Tom Mardirosian
  Tom Mardirosian
  Tom Mardirosian is an American actor. He is known for playing Agamemnon Busmalis in the HBO show Oz and Agent Kristos Koutris in the HBO show "The Wire"....
  
   - Detective Fallon
• Jihmi Kennedy
  Jihmi Kennedy
  Jihmi Kennedy is an American actor who is best known for his roles in Glory and Gung Ho. After co-starring in several notable films during the 1980s, he quit acting and worked as a teacher in North Carolina for most of the 1990s. He returned to acting in 2001.-External links:...
  
  
• Mark Margolis
  Mark Margolis
  Mark Margolis is an American actor who has been making films since 1976.Margolis went to Temple University briefly before moving to New York City, where he studied drama with Stella Adler and at the Actors Studio...
  
  
• Rex Everhart
  Rex Everhart
  Rex Everhart was an American film and musical theatre actor.Everhart appeared in such films as 1978's Superman...