The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971)

 Nothing frustrates me more than when critics will just presume that a director of Argento's visual mastery was just style and no substance. As if he couldn't direct a film with a plausible plot. A puzzler where a news reporter and blind former newsman (with a penchant for puzzles of different kinds to test and challenge his intellect) work together to locate a killer tied to a genetics lab associated with criminal disorder, hopefully on the verge of scientific breakthrough involving XYY chromosome. Franciscus is news reporter, Carlo Giordani, while Karl Malden is Franco Arno, a blind ex newsman who happened to be walking past a car (with his "daughter", Lori (Cinzia De Carolis)), hearing a black-haired man in a car requesting money. The bit of info and where Franco and Lori are located when that guy in his car is requesting his blackmail spark an investigation into a series of deaths connected to the science building. Scientists involved in that chromosome research either end up dead, are under suspicion, or help Carlo and Franco whittle down suspects. While there is violence in Dario Argento's The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), this time it is very limited and not entirely overtly graphic. A victim hoping to blackmail someone at the science lab is pushed into an incoming train, one victim (a photographer for Carlo who snapped a picture of the push) is strangled by a cord, as is another (the wife of the blackmailer, with a locket around her neck she plays with that made a certain click sound Franco remembers hearing and Lori sees when interviewing her), with one of the scientists discovered stabbed. During a macabre sequence, Franco has Carlo loosen the screws on the coffin of the first victim's wife to get the locket, with the corpse in full rigor...also Franco returns after the door to the mausoleum is closed with the blade in his walking cane (one of those retractable kind) bloodied, telling Carlo that Lori is kidnapped. 

Argento likes to show the eye of the killer

poisoned milk by the killer

I think what makes "The Cat o' Nine Tails" special as a giallo is the actual results to the mystery and the climax is actually worthwhile. Too often despite how much I love the giallo genre, the developing mystery is often more significant than the actual twist or eventual results. I think Carlo locating Lori in a room on the roof of the multi-storied building through blood drops (the killer was stabbed by Franco when told Lori was kidnapped as a threat for silence) is very clever, and the confrontation with the killer is physical, bloody, and dangerous. The killer startles and attacks Carlo from behind, with punches that dump him to the floor, and eventually down sections of rooftops. That Franco one-ups the killer and gets him to admit his wrongdoing and reasons is a nice bit of plotting because, for the most part, Carlo, the one with eyes, was unsuccessful towards stopping him. The killer falling through an ornamental glass windowed elevator shaft, trying to grab hold to cables, with Argento showing the hands and letting us hear the sliding skin down them until he lands onto the elevator itself at the close is a hell of a setpiece.

It was neat to see Karl Malden in an Argento film and Franciscus, quite a Heston-esque actor, as the dedicated reporter out for the killer while the police try to trail him and keep tabs on him is as good an American lead for an Argento film as I could remember. Argento might not have liked this film, but I personally think it is a solid giallo that sacrifices a bunch of explicitly gruesome murders in favor of a linear, well told mystery from start to end.

Interestingly, in the film, Argento features Carlo at a gay man's bar interviewing a scientist with a table full of lovers, later told by another who was jealous of that scientist for stealing his man where that scientist was hidden due to fear of being killed also by the psychopath. You can see how Argento didn't shy away from progressive lifestyles so often avoided by Hollywood for quite some time. Catherine Spaak, as Anna, is actually adopted by the head of the genetics lab, not knowing she isn't really Professor Terzi's (Tino Carraro) daughter. For a bit of extra sleaze in the story, Terzi has sexual feelings for Anna, admitted in a diary. So this is very much a giallo, although anything related to fashion (Anna is the only one treated sort of as a socialite, although she's not a model) isn't involved. There is a great car chase where Anna, behind the wheel of Carlo's car, speeds through Rome as the police try to keep up, eventually losing her. Argento edits the chase where we see Anna constantly feet to pedal to the metal and gearing away, cutting plenty of corners and moving rather alarmingly fast down crowded streets...it's a wild, if too brief, chase. I really dig this film. It just isn't your typical Argento film. He really dedicates the film to a narrative structure that isn't too confused or interrupted by Argento eccentricities. 3.5/5

***I was actually surprised to find this on Turner Classics during the day, considering Anna pulls off her top, revealing her breasts as she prepares to have sex with Carlo; not to mention, a few of the murders are still violent enough. This actually got a TV-14 rating.***

***This presentation on TCM was a beautiful transfer, the best I've ever seen the film. The last itme I rented this was from Netflix and the transfer was dreadful.***