Review by Roger Carpenter
After the runaway international success of director Dario Argento’s freshman effort, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, he quickly followed that animal-themed film with The Cat O’ Nine Tails. The film is essentially a whodunit featuring a blind man with extra-sensitive hearing due to his blindness who uses his only family, a little girl, as his eyes. They overhear a mysterious snippet of conversation on the street and later meet a hard-bitten detective at the scene of a murder. Connecting the conversation with the murder, the trio become embroiled in a series of killings. But the closer they get to the killer’s identity the more danger they are in as the killer soon begins to target them as well.
Argento’s sophomore effort was also a success and, together with his third film, 4 Flies on Grey Velvet, are credited with not only creating the giallo film, but with also creating an entire series of films with innovative titles using animal names. Thus, we have The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, The Bloodstained Butterfly, Don’t Torture a Duckling, Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, The Black Belly of the Tarantula, and at least a dozen others, all loosely connected to the animal in the film’s title. In the case of The Cat O’ Nine Tails, the title is derived from nine people, all who hold a piece of the puzzle that will solve the crime, “It’s like a cat o’ nine tails,” the blind man announces midway through the film.
American film star Karl Malden stars as Cookie, the blind man whose only family is a young niece who acts as his eyes. Another American actor, James Franciscus, co-stars as Giordani, the detective assigned to the mysterious murder of a doctor in a genetics lab. While both actors do a fine job, perhaps this was the source of Argento’s dissatisfaction as he identifies the film as his least favorite amongst his own films. When asked to explain, he simply says he feels it is “too American,” though lately he has begun to change his tune a bit.
Though Detective Giordani investigates officially, he often ends up at Cookie’s house to go over the details of the case. Giordani can’t help but be attracted to the flashy, trashy Anna Terzi (Catherine Spaak), daughter of imminent geneticist Professor Terzi. But he also finds her distasteful and off-putting, though she’s likely only guilty of being a rich bitch. For their part, Cookie and his niece Lori (Cinzia De Carolis, perhaps most famous for getting her crotch bitten by John Saxon in Antonio Margheriti’s crazy, gory Cannibal Apocalypse) do some unofficial snooping, stopping by to speak with the widow of the first victim, Bianca Merusi (Rada Rassimov, sister of genre icon Ivan Rassimov and veteran of films such as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly and Baron Blood). While there, Cookie again unknowingly hits upon a clue when he hears a unique sound. Asking Lori to describe what she saw, Lori identifies a charm Ms. Merusi was moving up and down on the chain of her necklace. As bodies begin to pile up, the trio face ever increasing danger. Will they solve the crime before the murderer gets one of them?
For years I’ve felt like The Cat O’ Nine Tails has played second fiddle to Argento’s more lurid pictures. Along with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, most viewers mention titles such as Deep Red, Tenebrae, and Suspiria as Argento’s best work. That’s hard to argue against as each of those films is superb. But The Cat O’ Nine Tails shouldn’t be dismissed. Certainly it isn’t as lurid or gory as the aforementioned films—it’s only an R rating, even uncut, unlike many of Argento’s most famous and popular works. But there is much to like about the film. Even as early as this, his second picture, Argento fans can pick out his unique camerawork. There are long, smoothly-flowing takes as the camera roves across the entire length of a building, for example. And while the blood doesn’t flow as heavily in this film as Argento’s others, there are plenty of violent murders with knives, guns, and even a garrote. Argento also utilizes quite a bit of comedy in this film. Many of his films use a homosexual character as flamboyant as to be a caricature for the comedy bits—something that doesn’t necessarily work well, especially in this day and age. And while he can’t help but include a scene in a gay bar even in this film, his use of comedy has a lighter touch and includes a shtick whereby an elderly couple attempt to cross a road during a car chase as well as several other, more subtle comedic touches that lighten the film and caused me to laugh out loud.
Malden, starring as Cookie, does an excellent job portraying a blind man. It is an authentic performance and deserves more accolades than it has gotten, perhaps because it was seen as not just an import film, but a cheap horror film. Franciscus is also very good as the hard-nosed cop with a soft heart. Spaak portrays her character of Anna Terzi with a real flair that makes you dislike her from the beginning. It is a well-balanced performance that is Kardashian before there were any Kardashians: just this side of trashy, with a holier-than-thou attitude that screams, “I have more money than you!”
Fresh off of Argento’s Bird with the Crystal Plumage, composer Ennio Morricone provides an excellent score replete with weird instrumentation and eerie orchestration. It’s hard to believe he will turn 100 this year and is currently scoring his 524th credit! And, of course, because it’s Dario Argento, there has to be at least one painfully violent scene to watch, this time the centerpiece being the smoking hands of a victim as he tries to stop his fall down an elevator shaft by gripping the metal cables of the elevator. Ouch!
Ultimately, I believe The Cat O’ Nine Tails has suffered unjustly because of Argento’s more stylized and hyper-violent works and, perhaps, because of his own criticism of the film. If you haven’t watched it, give it a try. It’s no Suspiria, but it’s a solid little film.
Arrow Video USA will be releasing the film this February in a 2-disc, dual format, limited edition, and sporting a brand new, 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative. The results are extremely nice to view. Typical of Arrow Video, this special edition comes with a nice set of extra features, both on the disc and in the package. These include a new commentary by Argento expert Alan Jones and film critic Kim Newman, new interviews with Argento, co-writer Dardano Sacchetti, actress Cinzia De Carolis, and production manager Angelo Iacono, the original Italian and international theatrical trailers for the film, and a really nice short feature that shows the script pages for the original ending of the film that has since been lost. The package contains a double-sided foldout poster, four lobby card reproductions, and a limited edition booklet featuring Argento himself and new writing on the film as well. You can purchase the film at Amazon or directly from Arrow Video at http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/category/usa/.
