The Girl Who Knew Too Much/La Ragazza che Sapeva Troppo/The Evil Eye (1963) - Bava begins giallo genre with preposterous, sexy, Rome-set romance mystery

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A delectably designed and painted French poster for Mario Bava's The Girl Who Knew Too Much

An American tourist in Rome gets attacked and witnesses a murder, - or did she?

 

The Girl Who Knew Too Much is written by Ennio De Concini (The Twist/Folies Bourgeoises (1976)), Sergio Corbucci (Goliath and the Vampires/Maciste contro il Vampiro (1961)) and Eliana De Sabata (The Attic/L'Attico (1963)), with Mino Guerrini (Commando/Marcia o Crepa (1962)), Francesco Prosperi (Slave of Rome/La Schiava di Roma (1961)) and co-writer/director/cinematographer Mario Bava (Lust of the Vampire/I Vampiri (1957)) contributing elements.

It has a trashy/silly plot, which seems loose not only because the protagonist is an Italian-speaking 'American' with an aunt in Rome and no American characteristics, SPOILER but also from the killer turning out to be a madwoman, who slays in alphabetical order ... John Saxon (Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)) and Letícia Román (Who Wants to Sleep?/Das Liebeskarussell (1965)) are sexy, and Bava thankfully manages to get a lot of the eternal city into his film, which is beautiful to behold, and so for the Italophile The Girl Who Knew Too Much is acceptably entertaining. It is also of interest as the ostensibly first giallo movie, the particularly Italian dime-novel adaptation thriller mystery genre, and it certainly is premier giallo nonsense.

Related posts:

Mario Bava: Blood and Black Lace (1964) or, The Fashionista Killer!

Black Sabbath/I Tre Volti Della Paura (1963) - Bava and Karloff's great, gothic anthology 
Hercules Unchained (1959) - Spaghetti decadence never fades (cinematographer)

 

Watch the opening 3 minutes of the film in the French version here

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain

[The Girl Who Knew Too Much premiered 14 February (Turin, Italy) and runs 86 minutes. Bava was convinced to not leave directing for good and do the film by its American executive producers from American International Pictures, Samuel Arkoff and Jim Nicholson. Shooting took place in Italy, including Rome, from June - August 1962. One source says the film made 27k $ in its opening and only weekend, likely in Italy, but this collides with another information that it opened in different regions of the country in February, June and July of 1963. In North America it was edited with scenes cut, a new score and another ending and more comedic elements and given the title The Evil Eye, playing on a likely highly lucrative double bill with Bava's Black Sabbath (1963). Bava later disparaged the film, calling it "too preposterous." He returned with Black Sabbath (1963). Saxon returned in The Cardinal (1963); Román in The Reunion/La Rimpatriata (1963). 3,982 IMDb users have given The Girl Who Knew Too Much a 7.1/10 average rating.]

 

What do you think of The Girl Who Knew Too Much?

Blood and Black Lace/Sei Donne per l'Assissino/Six Women for the Murderer (1964) or, The Fashionista Killer

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One of the irresistible posters for Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace

QUICK REVIEW:

The masked, leather-glove-wearing serial killer, who wreaks havoc in a Roman fashion house in Blood and Black Lace could be just about anyone of the characters in the film, and he gets characterized by the police commissioner as a "sex maniac in a homicidal fury!"
Italian horror master Mario Bava (The Mask of Satan (1960)) had a real knack for atmospheric lighting in grotesque, flamboyant set-ups in often extravagant environments, - a knack that proves a 'recipe for success' in Lace. The film is said to be the first so-called 'body-count' horror movie, a great inspiration for the American horror films, and the slashers in particular, of the 80s. It is also regarded as the first Italian giallo film. Giallo is an Italian pulp crime whodunit genre with explicit murders, countless shady characters and first person atrocities.
The dialog and acting  in Lace (which is dubbed) is uneven, often making the film involuntarily funny, and logic is pretty hard to come by in this largely stylistic film that also features several beautiful and often scantily clad models.
A fun trivia: The Danish title for Lace can be translated to 'The Iron Hand in the Night of Terror', a truly ludicrous title in itself, but especially enigmatic for people who have seen the film, which doesn't involve any 'iron hand' nor happens during one night of terror, but over the course of several.
Bava died nearly 34 years ago, and Italian cinema, and the Italian horror scene especially, is today far from the creativity and flourish of past decades, alas.

Here are some more pictures of Bava's remarkable light work and compositions, and two more posters for this eye candy, gritty horror. Click to enlarge

Related review:

Mario Bava, cinematographer: Hercules Unchained (1959) - Spaghetti decadence never fades

Watch the sensationalist trailer here

Budget: 0.15 mil. $
Box office: 123 mil. ITA (only Italy)
= Uncertainty

What do you think of Blood and Black Lace?
What is Bava's best film/s?

The Cat O'Nine Tails/Il Gatto a Nove Code (1971) - Argento's solid genetics-themed giallo murder puzzle

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The content-heavy, splashy American poster for Dario Argento's The Cat O'Nine Tails pitched the film against Alfred Hitchcock's hit Psycho (1960), a very different film

A string of murders revolve around a genetics research company in Rome, where scientists believe they have found the gene for a violent disposition. A well-informed reporter pairs up with a blind man, who likes to solve puzzles, to try to get to the bottom of the affair.

 

The Cat O'Nine Tails is written by Bryan Edgar Wallace (Inspector Hornleigh (1939)) and Italian master filmmaker, co-writer/director Dario Argento (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage/L'uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo (1970)), whose second film it was. Luigi Cozzi (Devil Fish (1984)) and Dardano Sacchetti (Turbo (2000, TV-series)) contributed story elements. It is the 2nd in Argento's Animal trilogy that starts with The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) and ends with Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971).
It is not as thrillingly fresh and perfectly paced or achieved as Bird with the Crystal Plumage, but it is still a solid giallo crime thriller puzzle.

James Franciscus (Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)) and Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) are the two American stars: Franciscus is charismatic and intriguing as the reporter, and Malden gives his character a good amount of suspiciousness, and also plays blind to an ace.

The title's 'nine tails' refer not to a whip or a real cat, but to the puzzle, which has no less than 9 suspects. As in any good giallo, several characters seem suspicious and have motives for being the killer, and it is fun to try to guess who the killer really is while basically not having a clue. The film is also peppered with some pretty horrific murder scenes, (a trademark of Argento's), and revels much more in its violence and death than Psycho (1960), which it was compared to in its US marketing campaign, (see poster above). The subjectively shot murder scenes incorporate extreme close-ups of the killer's retina, which is an uncanny motif that also deftly lends extra suspicion to at least two characters in the film.
Ennio Morricone (In the Line of Fire (1993)) has composed a nerve-wrecking score. (One of the compositions, Paranoia Prima, was re-used by Quentin Tarantino in his excellent Grindhouse homage Death Proof (2007), and you can see and hear why, when you watch Cat O'Nine Tails.)
Somewhat too late into the film, humor is introduced, - and it is appreciated, because the atmosphere, characters, and Morricone's score are all anxiety-provoking almost to a point of feeling oppressive. SPOILER One of the best scenes in the films is morbidly humorous and takes place in a barber's salon. (Hitchcock would almost certainly have loved this scene, if he saw the film, which he may have done.) There are other good scenes in a gay club, a grave yard at night (of course) and by a train station.

The eeriness of this thriller comes partly from its visuals, and partly from its plot; just about everyone is potentially a bestial killer; and not only that, but it's in that person's blood, in his - or her's - DNA, a seemingly inevitable end destination for the wretched sinner.
The identity of the killer shall, of course, not be revealed here, SPOILER only I will add that the film ends with Argento's keenness for the abrupt and cinematically impressive in a series of awesome elevator shaft shots.
While this is a solid thriller, it is not carried out with as much care or enthusiasm as Argento's debut, one detects.

 

Related posts:

Dario Argento: The Phantom of the Opera/Il Fantasma dell'Opera (1998) - Argento's Leroux adaptation is a kicker mostly for stout fans 

Demons/Dèmoni (1985) or, Cinema of Death! (co-writer/producer)

Inferno (1980) - Argento's satanic New York-set nightmare masterpiece 

Dawn of the Dead (1978) or, Mall of Death! (co-composer)

The Cat O'Nine Tails/Il Gatto a Nove Code (1971) - Solid genetics-themed giallo murder puzzle

Documentary about Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (2002) - Bio. doc. of Dario Argento 

 

Watch a trailer for the movie here

Cost: Estimated 1 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 2.4 bil. Italian Lira
= Uncertain but likely at least a box office success

[The Cat O'Nine Tails premiered 12 February (Milan, Italy) and runs 112 minutes. Shooting took place from September - October 1970 in Italy, including in Rome, and in Berlin, Germany. The film was reportedly a hit in Italy, where it grossed 2.4 bil. Lira, the equivalence of which in $ is regrettably hard to ascertain. It was reportedly unsuccessful elsewhere in Europe but acclaimed in North America, where it started screening in May and June to unknown gross numbers. Argento returned with Four Flies on Grey Velvet/4 Mosche di Velluto Grigio (1971). Franciscus returned in 11 TV and animated credits prior to his theatrical return in The Amazing Dobermans (1976); Malden in Wild Rovers (1971); and Catherine Spaak (Alice (2010)) in The Boxer/Un Uomo dalla Pelle Dura (1972). The Cat O'Nine Tails is fresh at 81 % with a 6.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Cat O'Nine Tails?

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage/L'Uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo (1970) - Argento's great giallo debut

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A macabre painting makes up this poster for Dario Argento's The Bird With the Crystal Plumage

An American writer witnesses a murder attempt one night in Rome, while he is claustrophobically locked inside a glass section in an empty art gallery. The police denies him departure from the city, as he gets increasingly entangled in the web of what proves to be a complicated serial killer.

 

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage is written and directed by debuting Italian master filmmaker Dario Argento (Suspiria (1977)), unofficially adapting Fredric Brown's (What Mad Universe (1949)) novel The Screaming Mimi (1949). The English title is a literal translation of the original Italian title.

It is an impressive, highly suspenseful debut, a crime thriller with horror elements, made in the Italian giallo subgenre: The word means yellow and comes from the popular, Italian, yellow-covered pulp crime novels that the films most often adapt. They combine mysterious, brutal serial killers with scores of suspicious characters in thriller puzzles with grisly murder scenes, often filmed in the killer's POV, and mostly targeting attractive women.
There is very little to criticize about the film: Some of the editing transitions are a bit primitive, but for many lovers of Italian cinema from the period, they are merely charming in their abruptness. SPOILER The ending takes after Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) in explaining away the killer's psychology, which I don't find to be very fitting ends to such incredible films in both cases - but the damage is minimal.
Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now (1979)) photographed the film with Argento's eminent, expressionistic-creative approach, - especially the murder scenes are mercilessly depicted, - and Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)) has made the perfect, very funky and at the same time anxiety-provoking, nightmarish score. Even the acting performances, which are often not great in Argento's films, (mostly because he is more interested in the visual side of directing), are solid throughout The Bird With the Crystal Plumage.
Argento's direction and script are fantastic here: Surprises keep coming, and memorable scenes follow each other like pearls on a string, SPOILER such as the scene with the hunt for the yellow jacket, the one with the artist who eats cats, the zoo scenes, and the fall from the apartment window scene!... This film is, in short, awesome!

 

Related posts:

Dario Argento: The Phantom of the Opera/Il Fantasma dell'Opera (1998) - Argento's Leroux adaptation is a kicker mostly for stout fans 

Demons/Dèmoni (1985) or, Cinema of Death! (co-writer/producer)

Dawn of the Dead (1978) or, Mall of Death! (co-composer)

The Cat O'Nine Tails/Il Gatto a Nove Code (1971) - Solid genetics-themed giallo murder puzzle

Documentary about Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (2002) - Bio. doc. of Dario Argento 

 

   

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: Reportedly 500k $
Box office: Uncertain but likely at least 3 mil. $
= Uncertain but most likely a huge hit (projected return of 6 times its cost)

[The Bird With the Crystal Plumage premiered 27 February (Milan, Italy) and runs 96 minutes. Shooting took place from August - October 1969 in Italy, including in Rome. The film was reportedly a hit in Italy, grossing 1.65 bil. ITL, reportedly around 1 mil. $, and in Spain, where it reportedly sold around 1.3 mil. tickets. It was released in North America in 1970 and in many more markets that year and the two following years. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. Argento returned with The Cat O'Nine Tails/Il Gatto a Nove Code (1971). Tony Musante (The Yards (2000)) returned in The Anonymous Venetian/Anonimo Veneziano (1970); Suzy Kendall (Torso/I Corpi Presentano Tracce di Violenza Carnale (1973)) in Darker than Amber (1970)). The Bird With the Crystal Plumage is certified fresh at 85 % with a 7.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage?