The Cat o’ Nine Tails

I originally wrote this for The Fandom Post. You can check out that post here.

Dario Argento’s second directorial outing has all the trappings of your standard giallo– the POV shots from the killer’s perspective, the hands cloaked in black gloves, the way suspects are eliminated by means of death until only one logical suspect remains– but the meat and bones of the story feels more like an “odd couple” detective TV series than anything.

The story begins with a break-in at a genetics lab, and two men find themselves wrapped up in the investigation and subsequent string of murders. Giordani is a newspaper reporter, and he gets the bulk of the ground-level investigative work– trawling bars, breaking into crypts, and seducing the daughter of the head of the lab. His counterpart, Arnò, is an older blind man who creates crossword puzzles and loves puzzles in general, and uses this knowledge to act as the brains to Giordani’s relative brawn. Add in Lori, Arnò’s young, adorable, orphaned niece, who also gets wrapped up in the mystery, and you have the makings of something more akin to a sitcom or dramady than a giallo.

Couple this with a mystery hinged on some antiquated, almost sci-fi-like assumptions about genetics, and you get what’s easily the “lightest” movie in Argento’s oeuvre. The genetics lab is investigating the presence of excess Y-chromosomes and linking this to a propensity to criminal behavior. Argento’s movies rarely take on a high concept that’s as concrete as this, as even most of his pre-Suspiria giallo output is more interested in the psychological ramifications of murder than giving such a definitive driving force. The meat of the movie comes more from the interaction between the main characters, which is often funny and charming.

There’s also an interesting aside addressing some aspects of homosexual subculture, as one of the suspects, Dr. Braun, is a gay man who frequents a bar catering to that crowd. “Interesting” is the best way to put it, as Giordani’s entrance into the bar is presented in such a way to emphasize the “otherness” of the situation, but the conversation (and subsequent flirting) between Giordani and Braun is presented in a very matter of fact way. This leads to a brief side plot involving jealousy between two of Braun’s lovers that could have easily been a major aspect of the story, but gets crammed into a couple of brief scenes towards the end of the movie. The overall portrayal is a bit of a mixed bag, so I’ll leave judgement to those with a better understanding of such matters, but it’s worth noting as Argento will deal with similar themes with more emphasis in later films (such as Tenebrae and Deep Red).

All that said, if nothing else about the movie strikes one’s fancy, Ennio Morricone’s score may make the whole thing worth a watch. It’s a jazzy, discordant thing that really elevates the relative grounded plot and “kills,” and the violent percussion is the closest we ever get to really seeing into the killer’s mind.