This was one of the first Dario Argento films I ever watched. I had definitely watched The Bird With the Crystal Plumage before, and probably Suspiria, but I was not well versed in Argento or Giallo at that point. I watched it on an old DVD that I bought on the cheap. It was one of those packs of multiple films all put onto a couple of discs where the quality is god-awful. This was a pack of like ten slasher films on two discs.
I didn’t know anything about the film; I’m not even sure I knew it was an Argento, but it sounded interesting, and I gave it a go. I mostly liked it, but I didn’t love it.
I’ve seen it a couple of times since and have come to enjoy it more. Having now seen almost all of Argento’s filmography and a whole lot of Giallo, I can better see how it fits inside those things and appreciate it more. It still isn’t anywhere close to my favorite, but it’s a long way from the worst. I do find it interesting that I watched it so early.
The Cat O’ Nine Tails was the second film Argento ever directed and is the middle part of what has become known as his “Animal Trilogy” (the first is Bird With the Crystal Plumage, the last is Four Flies on Gray Velvet.)
This film suffers from it leaning more towards the murder mystery aspects of the Giallo and away from the more lurid and stylistic parts of the genre.
Someone breaks into the Terzi Medical Institute but steals nothing. The institute studies genetics and has just made a breakthrough. It seems that individuals with an extra Y chromosome—making it XYY – have a much greater tendency toward violence. That extra chromosome is quite rare, but a study inside a prison found that those convicted of violent crimes had it at a much higher rate.
Since nothing was stolen, the police basically shrug. But a newspaper man named Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) takes an interest in the story, as does Franco “Cookie” Arno (Karl Malden), a blind man who loves working puzzles.
Before they can figure it out, the bodies start piling up. Someone is strangling people that at first seem random, but they ultimately are found to have some connection to the institute.
There are lots of groovy scenes featured from the killer’s point of view, usually as he’s killing someone. In the midst of this, Argento often gives us extreme close-ups on the killer’s eyes, but until the end we do not see who the killer is. With that and Cookie being blind, Argento’s themes about what we see and what we don’t are none too subtle. But still effective.
The editing is rather fascinating. Between scenes, the film will often give us flashes of what is to come. As one scene is ending, we’ll see the beginning of the next scene flash cut into the previous scene for a few seconds. There are a few nicely staged scenes and some typical Dario style, but mostly he plays it straight. Which is too bad because the actual story doesn’t quite have enough in it to keep me completely interested.
It is well worth seeing if you are a fan of Argento or Giallo. It isn’t the first film I’d turn to if you are interested, but it is definitely a nice way of seeing how things developed.
As an aside note I’m counting this as part of Foreign Film February even though the copy I watched was an English dub. Like a lot of Italian films from this time I believe Cat O’ Nine Tails was filmed with everyone speaking in their native tongue and then in post production it was dubbed into English and Italian (with the main actors using their own voice when possible – so Karl Malden speaks in English, and was presumably dubbed by an Italian for that version.) So this was a foreign made film directed by an Italian so I’m counting it.
themidnightcafe.org 