The general consensus is that Mario Bava’s 1963 film The Girl Who Knew Too Much (also known as The Evil Eye) was the very first Giallo. This is strange because it doesn’t actually seem like a Giallo at all.
It was filmed in black and white and Gialli is known for its bold use of color. The killer is neither black-masked nor black-gloved. There is little to no gore and the killer’s motivations don’t stem from some psycho-sexual need. The camera does linger on the main actress’s bikini-clad body in one scene. In another, she’s wearing a short nighty and the photograph of an old man (played by Bava himself) ogles her. But it has none of the sleaze later Gilli would contain.
It is a murder mystery and Bava does deploy some imaginative camera setups and interesting visuals, but it seems more like an inventive thriller than anything you’d dub a Giallo.
Truth be told I don’t know where that idea that it is the first Giallo comes from. Wikipedia says it’s true so maybe it is, but most of the other online articles I’ve read both note that it is the first Giallo and then in the same breath note that it doesn’t really feel like one. So who knows.
To make all this even more strange is the fact that Bava directed Blood and Black Lace just one year later and it has all the hallmarks of a Giallo.
Whether or not The Girl Who Knew Too Much deserves that Giallo recognition or not it is a fine film and deserves to be seen.
Letícia Román stars as Nora, an American tourist visiting her aunt in Rome. The aunt is very sick and dies that first night. When Nora leaves to find help she is immediately attacked by a robber. When she awakes she sees a woman run out of a house with a knife sticking out of her back. A man approaches the corpse and grabs the knife. She then faints. When she wakes up the street is clean and no one will believe her story.
Later she’ll read some old newspaper clippings about a woman who was murdered in the exact spot ten years prior. And then there were other murders, meaning a serial killer might be on the loose.
She’s aided by Dr. Marcello Bassi (John Saxon) who both believes her story and rather fancies her. They will investigate. I suppose that is another way in which this film meets the Giallo standard – non-police investigating the crime.
They’ll run into lots of interesting people and there will be a few more corpses. It is all pretty standard murder mystery stuff. But Bava infuses it with some remarkable images. It doesn’t hurt that it is set in Rome and Bava apparently had free reign of many of its incredible landmarks. Norah winds up staying in a house located right on the Spanish Steps and the film makes great use of that location.
I don’t know that I would really consider it a Giallo but it is an interesting starting point for the genre, call it proto-Giallo. Or don’t, but I recommend it anyway because it is well worth watching whatever genre you want to put it in.
themidnightcafe.org 