First released in 1985, Phenomena is the Dario Argento film with all the insects.
Phenomena is one of the most divisive of Argento’s film. Throughout the years, many critics have cited Phenomena as being the first Argento film to not really work. Some have called it Argento’s worst and most self-indulgent film and the first sign that he had lost his way. At the same time, I know quite a few people who consider Phenomena to be among Argento’s best films. The one thing that both camps seem to have in common is that their takes are all inspired by the film’s use of insects.
That said, Argento has always claimed that Phenomena is less about the insects and more about a world in which the Nazis conquered Europe. Much as with Argento’s claim that Tenebraeis actually a science fiction film, the idea that Phenomena takes place in a Europe controlled by Nazis can be found but only if you specifically look for it. For instance, the film is set in the Swiss countryside, with a similar emphasis on the mountains and the forests that were present in the German propaganda pictures that were taken of Hitler and his inner circle “relaxing” at his mountain residence. Much of the film takes place at a private school that is named after Richard Wagner, where the privileged students — with their always crisp uniforms and their haughty attitude — feel as if they could be descendants of the kid who sang Tomorrow Belongs To Me in Cabaret. One of the chaperones at the school is a German woman named Frau Bruckner (Daria Nicolodi). Again, much as with Tenebrae, Argento has said the Phenomena takes place in a world where terrible things have happened but the population has collectively decided to forget about them. Willfully forgotten seems to have been a major theme for Argento in the years following his unhappy experience with Inferno.
The film opens with the murder of 14 year-old Danish girl named Vera Brandt (played by Fiore Argento, the director’s daughter) who is a part of a tour group but who misses her bus. When she walks through the Swiss countryside in search of help, she comes across a house that’s not as abandoned as it originally. She is attacked and beheaded by the house’s resident. Eight months later, Vera’s decaying and maggot-covered heard is discovered and taken to forensic entomologist John McGregor (Donald Pleasence). Though McGregor uses a wheelchair, he has a monkey named Inga who takes care of him. Inga is quite capable with a straight-razor.
Meanwhile, chaperoned by Frau Bruckner, Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly) has just enrolled in the Richard Wagner Academy For Girls. Jennifer is the daughter of a Hollywood star. (Argento originally wanted Jennifer to be Al Pacino’s daughter, with Pacino playing himself. Pacino reportedly turned Argento down.) Jennifer is also a sleepwalker who has an intense mental connection with insects. Insects do her bidding and, in return, Jennifer protects them. When Frau Brucker and her chauffeur attempt to kill a bee, Jennifer is able to calm down the bee and set it free from the limo.
Jennifer struggles to fit in at the Academy. Much like Jessica Harper’s Suzy Banyon in Suspiria, she discovers that the other students are an idiosyncratic and not particularly friendly group. Whereas poor Suzy Banyon just had to accept her situation, Jennifer has an army of insects on her side and she’s willing to call them down on her snooty classmates. Of course, when Jennifer isn’t communing with the insects, she’s having to deal with the fact that she witnessed a murder while she was out sleepwalking. Haunted by images of the murder and being stalked by the murderer, Jennifer also learns that Frau Bruckner wants to send her to a mental hospital for being “diabolic.”
Jennifer’s only real friend in Switzerland is John McGregor and it must be said that Donald Pleasence, who was so misused in so many horror films in the 80s and 90s, is perfectly cast as the eccentric but kindly entomologist. Pleasence was one of those actors who could deliver even the strangest of lines with enough gravity to make them memorable and McGregor’s easy acceptance of the idea that Jennifer has a psychic connection with insects make it much easier for the viewer to accept it as well. As well, McGregor’s friendship with the monkey is far more touching than it has any right to be.
Phenomena is an odd mix of giallo and fantasy, with the brutal and violent murders uneasily playing out with more lyrical scenes featuring the beauty of Switzerland and the loyalty of the animal kingdom. Perhaps the best way to view Phenomena is as being an extremely bloody fairy tale, with Jennifer as a Cinderella-figure who depends on nature to stay safe from the adults and the students who stand in for the wicked stepmother and the ugly stepsisters. Visually, there are moments of haunting beauty in the film. There are other moments in which Argento seems to be determined to test how long the audience would be willing to accept the idea Jennifer and her insect army. Because of the whimsical insects, the film is often described as being an oddity in Argento’s filmography but actually, psychic insects and animals would pop up in future Argento films, so it seems that this was something that had obsessed him for a long time. Either that or the negative reaction afforded to Phenomena inspired Argento to continue to use the insects as his way of letting the critics know his true opinion of their worth.
I have to admit that I am amongst those who like Phenomena. It’s such a strange film that it’s hard for me not to admire it and, much as with Suspiria, the film benefitted from having a strong female protagonist in Jennifer Calvino. (For her part, Jennifer Connelly has said that she’s not particularly a fan of Phenomena.) Finally, this is a film that gave Donald Pleasence a chance to show what an engaging actor he could be when he had the right role. Critics be damned, I like this movie!
A few Octobers ago, I got the bright idea to try to review all of Dario Argento’s films over the course of TSL’s annual horrorthon. Unfortunately, I got that idea on September 29th, two days before the start of Horrorthon. I managed to make my way through Inferno until I had to temporarily abandon the project to focus on everything else that was going on that month. However, since I’m not the type to fully give up on anything, I figured this would be the great year to finish up my Argento reviews.
Following the commercial failure of Inferno, a disillusioned Dario Argento returned to Rome. His bad experience with 20th Century Fox had soured Argento on continuing to work with Hollywood and his struggles to film Inferno (as well as his increasingly strained relationship with girlfriend Daria Nicolodi) left him with little desire to continue The Three Mothers trilogy. Instead, he focused on a new idea, one that was inspired by his own experience with an obsessed fan who had left vaguely threatening messages for him when he was in New York. Released in 1982, Tenebrae was Argento’s return to the giallo genre and it would turn out to be a very triumphant return, even if in, typical Argento fashion, it would take a few years for many people to realize just how triumphant.
Argento himself claimed that, while the film was certainly a giallo, it was also his first stab at science fiction. In an interview that appeared in Cinefantastique, Argento said that the film was meant to take place a few years in the future, after some sort of calamity had occurred that has greatly reduced the world’s population. Interestingly, Argento said that the survivors were largely from the upper class and that none of them wanted to talk about or remember what had happened.
Is the science fiction element actually present in this film? I think it is, though perhaps only because I’ve specifically looked for it. Rome, as portrayed in Tenebrae, is a city that is full of sleek but impersonal buildings, the type that would have been recently built by a wealthy society that was unsure of what it believed. Argento specifically avoids filming any scene near any historical landmarks, suggesting all of the evidence of Rome’s former greatness has been wiped out.
Perhaps the most futuristic element of the film (and the most prophetic) is that no one really seems to have a connection with anyone else. The crowd scenes in Tenebrae aren’t really that crowded, even the ones that take place in what should be a busy airport. (In many ways, the film’s portrayal of a Rome that is both busy but strangely empty brings to mind Jean Rollin’s portrayal of Paris in The Night of the Hunted.) Even when we see people socialize, there seems to be an invisible barrier between them, as if they don’t want to run the risk of getting too close to each other. When one character is fatally stabbed while out in public, perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the murder is that so many people just walk away, as if they’ve been conditioned to ignore anything unpleasant. The only thing that prevents this scene from feeling like a vision of 2023 is that there aren’t a bunch of people filming the victim’s final moments on their phone.
The film opens with a sequence that, as a former teen shoplifter, left me feeling disturbed. Elisa Manni (Ania Pieroni, who played The Mother of Tears in Inferno and the enigmatic housekeeper in Fulci’s The House By The Cemetery) is a shoplifter who gets caught trying to steal the latest book by thriller novelist Peter Neal. After being released, the carefree Elisa walks back to her home and, after being menaced by both a barking dog and a pervy old man, Elisa arrives in the safety of her house, starts to undress, and is promptly attacked by a black-gloved killer who slashes her neck and stuffs pages of Neal’s book into her mouth. It’s not just the murder that makes this scene disturbing but also the fact that the killer was somehow waiting for Elisa in her house, establishing that this is a world where the safety of even a locked door is an illusion.
Peter Neal (Anthony Franciosa), who we first see riding his bicycle in New York, has come to Italy to promote his latest book, Tenebrae. He arrives in Rome with his manager, Bullmer (John Saxon, giving a likable performance) and his assistant, Anne (Daria Nicolodi). Confident to the point of arrogance, Peter is a pro at dismissing claims that his books are violent and misogynistic but even he is taken aback when an old friend of his, the journalist Tilde (Mirella D’Angelo), suggests that Tenebrae might inspire violence.
Peter Neal is a celebrity and a pretty obvious stand-in for Argento and everyone in the film is obsessed with him. His ex-fiancée, Jane (Victoria Lario), has followed Peter to Rome, intent on getting some sort of revenge for the way that he treated her while they were together. (Daria Nicolodi felt the vindictive and unstable Jane was based on her, which was another thing that strained her notoriously volatile relationship with Dario.) Peter’ young assistant, Gianni (Christian Borromeo, of Deodato’s The House on the Edge of the Park and Fulci’s Murderrock) hero worships him. The puritanical talk show host, Christiano Berti (John Steiner), wants to interview Peter about the morality of his books. And the killer, whoever they may be, is leaving letters for Peter, informing him that his book have inspired the killer’s crimes. Detective Germani (Spaghetti western star Giuliano Gemma) is investigating the letters and he is an admitted fan of Peter Neal’s novels but, somewhat alarmingly, he mentions that he’s never able to guess the killer’s identity.
Argento’s camera restlessly prowls his futuristic Rome while Goblin’s music booms on the soundtrack as the people in Peter Neal’s life are murdered by a killer wearing black gloves and carrying a straight razor. The murder scenes feature some of Argento’s best work, directed in such a ruthless and relentless manner that we understand the killer’s determination without having to see their face. This is a film of elaborate set pieces and, as if in direct response to 20th Century Fox’s attempts to control his work on Inferno, Argento is eager to show what he can do when left alone. The film is remembered for the sequence where the camera glides over the exterior of an apartment building while the killer stalks the inhabitants but, for me, the scariest scene is when poor Maria (Lara Wendel), the daughter of Neal’s landlord, finds herself being chased straight into the killer’s lair by a very viscous Doberman.
When the film does slow down, it’s for flashbacks to a beach and acts of sexual violence performed by and against an enigmatic woman (who is played by transgender performer, Eva Robbins). The beach flashbacks unfold in a hazy, dream-like manner and they leave us to wonder if what we’re watching is real or if it’s just a fantasy. If the “modern” scenes feature Argento at his most energetic, the beach scenes feature Argento at his most enigmatic.
Daria Nicolodi often said that she considered her final scene in this film to be Argento’s greatest act of cruelty to her. Coming across the killer’s final tableaux and discovering the truth about who the killer is, Anne stands in the rain and screams over and over again. Nicolodi apparently felt that Argento required her to stand there soaked and screaming in order to punish her for having worked (with Tenebrae co-star John Steiner) on Mario Bava’s Shock, instead of having accepted a supporting role in Suspiria.
Whatever personal motives may have been involved in the decision, I think Nicolodi’s screaming is one of the most powerful moments to be found in Tenebrae. It’s certainly the most human moment because I think anyone with a soul would scream upon learning the truth of what has been happening in Rome. Every assumption that Anne had has been overturned. Who wouldn’t scream? Continuing with Argento’s claim that the film was about a world where people no longer discuss the terrible things that have happened, Anne’s screams are the most human part of the movie.
Tenebrae is the last of Agento’s truly great and flawless films. Of course, in usual Argento fashion, it was not treated well in the States, where it was initially released in a heavily edited version and with a terrible title (Unsane, under which it can still be found in certain Mill Creek box sets). But Tenebrae has since been rediscovered and today stands as one of Argento’s greatest triumphs.
I’ve been using this October’s horrorthon as an excuse to rewatch and review the films of Dario Argento! Today we take a look at one of Argento’s best and most underrated films, 1980’s Inferno!
“There are mysterious parts in that book, but the only true mystery is that our very lives are governed by dead people.”
— Kazanian (Sacha Pitoeff) in Inferno
When 20th Century Fox released Dario Argento’s Suspiria in 1977, they weren’t expecting this Italian horror film to be a huge box office success. That it was caught them totally off guard. Though the studio executives may not have understood Italian horror, they did know that Suspiria made them a lot of money and they definitely wanted to make more of it.
As for Dario Argento, he followed up Suspiria by producing George Romero’s Dawnof the Dead. He also supervised the film’s European cut. (In Europe, Dawn of the Dead was known as Zombi, which explains why Lucio Fulci’s fake sequel was called Zombi2.) When Dawn of the Dead, like Suspiria before it, proved to be an unexpected box office hit, it probably seemed as if the Argento name was guaranteed money in the bank.
Hence, when Argento started production on a semi-sequel to Suspiria, 20th Century Fox agreed to co-finance. Though the majority of the film was shot on a sound stage in Rome, Argento was able to come to New York to do some location work, hence making this Argento’s first “American” film. The name of the movie was Inferno.
Sadly, Inferno proved to be a troubled production. Shortly after production began, Argento became seriously ill with hepatitis and reportedly, he had to direct some scenes while lying on his back while other sequences were done by the second unit.
As well, Argento had a strained relationship with 20th Century Fox. Argento wanted James Woods to star in Inferno but, when it turned out that Woods was tied up with David Cronenberg’s Videodrome, the studio insisted that Argento cast an actor named Leigh McCloskey instead. As a performer, James Woods is nervy, unpredictable, and compulsively watchable. Leigh McCloskey was none of those things.
Worst of all, as a result of a sudden management change at 20th Century Fox, Inferno was abandoned by its own distributor. The new studio executives didn’t know what to make of Inferno and, in America, the film only received an extremely limited release. The few reviews that the film received were largely negative. (Like most works of horror, Argento’s films are rarely critically appreciated when first released.) It’s only been over the past decade that Inferno has started to receive the exposure and acclaim that it deserves.
Argento has said that he dislikes Inferno, largely because watching it remind him of a very difficult time in his life. That’s unfortunate, because Inferno is one of his best films.
The Mother of Tears (Ania Pieroni) in Inferno
“Have you ever heard of the Three Sisters?”
“You mean those black singers?”
— Sara (Eleonora Giorgi) and Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) discuss mythology in Inferno
As I stated previously, Inferno is a semi-sequel to Suspiria. Whereas Suspiria dealt with an ancient witch known as the Mother of Sighs, Inferno deals with her younger sister, the Mother of Darkness. The Mother of Sighs lives underneath a German dance academy. The Mother of Darkness lives underneath a New York apartment building. The Mother of Sighs was a witch. The Mother of Darkness is an alchemist.
Beyond that and the fact that Alida Valli is in both films (though apparently playing different characters), there aren’t many references to Suspiria in Inferno. The tone of Inferno is very different from the tone of Suspiria. If Suspiria was perhaps Argento’s most straight-forward films, Inferno is one of his most twisted. It makes sense, of course. Suspiria is about magic but Inferno is about science. Suspiria casts a very Earthy spell while Inferno often feels like a scientific equation that cannot quite be solved.
The film deals with Mark Elliott (Leigh McCloskey), an American music student in Rome. After he gets a disturbing letter from his sister, Rose (Irene Miracle), a poet who lives alone in New York City, Mark heads back to the U.S. to check in on her. (That’s right — Mark and Rose are two more of Argento’s artistic protagonists.) However, when Mark arrives, he discovers that his sister is missing and it’s obvious that strange inhabitants of the building are trying to cover something up.
“May I ask a strange question?”
“How strange?”
— Sara (Eleonora Giorgi) and Mark Elliot (Leigh McCloskey) in Inferno
Even more than with some of Argento’s other films, the plot of Inferno isn’t particularly important. One reason why it’s easy to get annoyed with Mark is because he spends the entire film demanding to know where his sister is, despite the fact that those of us in the audience already know that she’s dead. Argento showed us her being murdered shortly before Mark’s arrival. Argento makes sure that we know but he never bothers to reveal the truth to Mark and one of the more curious aspects of the film is that Mark never discovers that his sister is dead. (By the end of the film, one assumes that he’s finally figured it out but even then, we don’t know for sure.) The fact of the matter is that Mark and his search for his sister are never really that important. Argento doesn’t particularly seem to care about Mark and he never really gives the viewer any reason to care either. (Of course, it doesn’t help that Mark is rather stiffly played by Leigh McCloskey.)
Instead, Argento approaches Inferno as a collection of increasingly surreal set pieces. Much as in Lucio Fuci’s Beyond trilogy, narrative logic is less important than creating a dream-like atmosphere. Often time, it’s left to the viewer to decide how everything fits together.
There are so many odd scenes that it’s hard to pick a favorite or to know where to even begin. Daria Nicolodi shows up as Elise Stallone Van Adler, a neurotic, pill-popping aristocrat who briefly helps Mark look for his sister. Eventually, she’s attacked by thousands of cats before being stabbed to death by one of Argento’s trademark black-gloved killers. After Elise’s death, her greedy butler makes plans to steal her money. Did the butler kill Elise? We’re never quite sure. Does the butler work for The Mother of Darkness or is he just being influenced by her evil aura? Again, we’re never sure. (By that same token, when the butler eventually turns up with eyes literally hanging out of their sockets, we’re never quite sure how he ended up in that condition. And yet, somehow, it makes a strange sort of sense that he would.)
Cats also feature into perhaps the film’s most famous scene. When the crippled and bitter book seller Kazanian (Sacha Pitoeff) attempts to drown a bag of feral cars in a Central Park pond, he is suddenly attacked by a pack of a carnivorous rats. A hot dog vendor hears Kazanian’s cries for help and rushes over. At first, the vendor appears to be a good Samaritan but suddenly, he’s holding a knife and stabbing Kazanian to death. Why did the rats attack in the first place? Is the hot dog vendor (who only appears in that one scene) a servant of the Mother of Darkness or is he just some random crazy person? And, in the end, does it matter? At times, Inferno seems to suggest that the real world is so insane that the Mother of Darkness is almost unnecessary.
Meanwhile, in Rome, Mark sits in class and reads a letter from his sister. When he looks up, he immediately sees that a beautiful young woman is looking straight at him. She’s petting a cat and staring at him with a piercing stare. (She is played Ania Pieroni, who later achieved a certain cult immortality by appearing as the enigmatic housekeeper in Lucio Fulci’s The House By The Cemetery.) The film later suggests that the woman is the third mother, the Mother of Tears, but why would she be in the classroom? Why would she be staring at Mark?
When Mark’s girlfriend, Sara (Eleonora Giorgi), does some research in a library, she finds a copy of a book about The Three Mothers and is promptly attacked by a mysterious figure. When she flees back to her apartment, she meets Carlo (Gabriele Lavia, who was also in Deep Red) who agrees to stay with her until Mark arrives. Is Carlo sincere or is he evil? Argento does eventually answer that question but he certainly keeps you guessing until he does.
Finally, I have to mention the best and most haunting scene in the film. When Rose searches a cellar for a clue that she believes will lead her to the Mother of Darkness, she discovers a hole that leads to a flooded ballroom. When Rose drops her keys into the hole, she plunges into water and swims through the room. (The first time I saw this scene, I immediately said, “Don’t do that! You’re going to ruin your clothes!”) As Rose discovers, not only keys get lost in that flooded ballroom. There’s a dead body as well, one which floats into the scene from out of nowhere and then seems to be intent on following Rose through the entire room. It’s a sequence that is both beautiful and nightmarish. (It certainly does nothing to help me with my fear of drowning.)
In the end, Inferno is a dream of dark and disturbing things. Does the plot always make sense? Not necessarily. But that plot’s not important. The film’s surreal imagery and atmosphere of doom and paranoia casts a hypnotic spell over the viewer. Inferno is perhaps as close to a filmed nightmare as you’ll ever see.
“She writes poetry.”
“A pastime especially suited for women.”
— Mark and the Nurse (Veronica Lazar) in Inferno
Finally, no review of Inferno would be complete without discussing some of the people who worked behind-the-scenes.
Along with acting in the film, Daria Nicolodi also worked on the script. As is so often the case with Daria and Dario’s collaborations, there are conflicting reports of just how involved Nicolodi was with the final script. Daria has said that she would have demanded co-writing credit, if not for the fact that it had previously been such an ordeal to get credited for Suspiria. Others have claimed that, while Nicolodi offered up some ideas, the final script was almost all Argento’s creation.
(Comparing the films that Argento made with Nicolodi to the ones that he made without her leads me to side with Nicolodi.)
Working on the film as a production assistant was William Lustig, the famed exploitation film producer and director who would later become the CEO of Blue Underground. Reportedly, during filming, Lustig attempted to convince Nicolodi to star in a film that he was going to direct. Nicolodi’s co-star would have been legendary character actor Joe Spinell. Disgusted by the film’s script, Nicolodi refused the role and, as a result, Caroline Munro ended up playing the stalked fashion photographer in Lustig’s controversial Maniac.
Future director Michele Soavi worked on several of Argento’s films. I’ve always been under the impression that Soavi was a production assistant on Inferno but, when I rewatched the film, he wasn’t listed in the credits. Inferno is also not among his credits on the imdb. I guess the idea that one of my favorite Italian horror directors worked on one of my favorite Italian horror films was just wishful thinking on my part.
However, you know who is listed in the credits? Lamberto Bava! Bava, who would later direct the Argento-produced Demons, worked as an assistant director on Inferno. That leads us to perhaps the most famous member of Inferno’s crew…
Mario Bava!
Inferno was the final film for the father of Italian horror. As so often happens, there are conflicting reports of just how involved Bava was with the production. It is know that he worked on the special effects and that he directed some second unit work while Argento was bed ridden with hepatitis. Irene Miracle has said that almost all of her scenes were directed by Mario Bava and that she rarely saw Argento on set.
Mario Bava is often erroneously described as being Dario Argento’s mentor. That’s certainly what I tended to assume until I read Tim Lucas’s All The Colors of the Dark, the definitive biography on Mario Bava. Bava was certainly an influence and it’s certainly true that Argento appears to have had a better relationship with him than he did with Lucio Fulci. But the idea that a lot of Italian horror fans have — that Mario Bava was hanging out around the set of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and offering Argento fatherly advice — does not appear to be at all true. (It’s a nice image, though.) With all that in mind, it’s still feels somewhat appropriate that Bava’s final work was done on one of the best (if most underappreciated) Italian horror films of all time.
“I do not know what price I shall have to pay for breaking what we alchemists call Silentium, the life experiences of our colleagues should warn us not to upset laymen by imposing our knowledge upon them.”
— The Three Mothers by E. Varelli, as quoted in Dario Argento’s Inferno
I’ve been using this year’s horrorthon as an excuse to watch and review all (well, almost all) of Dario Argento’s films! Today, I take a look at one of Argento’s best — 1975’s Deep Red!
After the successful release of Four Flies on Grey Velvetin 1971, Dario Argento announced his retirement from the giallo genre. His next film was 1973’s The Five Days of Milan, a historical comedy-drama with a political subtext. The Five Days of Milan was a huge box office flop in Italy and, to the best of my knowledge, it was never even released in the United States. To date, it is Argento’s most obscure film and one that is almost impossible to see. In fact, it’s so obscure that, in two of my previous posts, I accidentally called the film The Four Days of Milan and apparently, no one noticed.
Forgotten Argento
After the failure of Five Days, Argento returned to the giallo genre. And while he was undoubtedly stunned by the failure of his previous film, Argento ended up directing one of the greatest Italian films of all time. If The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet were both great giallo films, Deep Red is a great film period. It is Argento at his over the top best.
Now, before I go any further, I should point out that there are many different versions of Deep Red floating around. For instance, it was released in the United States under the title The Hatchet Murders and with 26 minutes of footage cut from the film. For this review, I watched the original 126-minute Italian version. I’ve always preferred the original to the shorter version that was released in America. Oddly enough, Argento has said that he prefers the shorter version.
Deep Red opens with a blast of music that both announces Argento’s return to the giallo genre and also provides some hints to his future as a filmmaker. Whereas his previous films had all featured an excellent but rather serious score by Ennio Morricone, Deep Red was the first Argento film to be scored by Goblin. There’s a gothic, almost operatic playfulness to Goblin’s work on the film. (If the Phantom of the Opera had ended up working in Hollywood and writing film scores, the end result would have sounded a lot like Goblin.) Goblin’s deafening score works as the perfect sonic companion to Argento’s constantly roving camera and vibrantly colorful images. (The blood spilled in Deep Red is the reddest blood imaginable.)
Deep Red‘s protagonist is Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) and, like so many Argento protagonists, he’s both an artist and a man without a definite home. At one point, he explains that he was born in England, grew up in America, and now lives in Italy. He’s a jazz pianist but he supports himself by giving music lessons. In a scene excised from the American cut, Marcus tells his students that, while classical music should be respected and appreciated, it’s also necessary to be willing to embrace art that some critics would dismiss as being “trashy.” Marcus, of course, is talking about jazz but he could just as easily be Dario Argento, defending his decision to return to the giallo genre.
While Marcus plays piano and tries to help his alcoholic friend, Carlo (Gabriele Lavia), a German psychic named Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril) is giving a lecture when she suddenly announces that someone in the audience is a murderer. Later, Helga is brutally murdered by a gloved, hatchet-wielding attacker.
(Helga’s murder scene is always difficult for me to watch, even if Argento doesn’t — as Kim Newman pointed out in a review written for Monthly Film Bulletin — linger over the carnage in the way that certain other horror directors would have. I have to admit that I also always find it interesting that Helga is played by the same actress who, that same year, would play the evil Lady On The Train in Aldo Lado’s The Night Train Murders. Playing one of the Lady’s victims was Irene Miracle, who later co-starred in Argento’s Inferno.)
The only witness to Helga’s murder? Marcus Daly, of course. He’s standing out in the street, having just talked to Carlos, when he looks up and sees Helga being murdered in her apartment. Marcus runs up to the apartment to help, arriving just too late. And yet, Marcus is convinced that he saw something in the apartment that he can’t quite remember. Deep Red is yet another Argento film that deals with not only the power of memory but the difficulties of perception. Marcus knows that he saw something but what?
Well, I’m not going to spoil it for you! In this case, the mystery and its solution makes a bit more sense than the mysteries in Argento’s first three films. Argento isn’t forced to resort to debunked science, like he did in both Cat o’Nine Tails and Four Flies on Grey Velvet. One reason why Deep Red is so compulsively watchable is because, for perhaps the first time, Argento plays fair with the mystery. After you watch the film the first time, go back and rewatch and you’ll discover that all the clues were there. You just had to know where to look.
That said, the way that Argento tells the story is still far more important than the story itself. Argento’s first three films may have been stylish but Deep Red finds Argento fully unleashed. The camera never stops moving, the visuals are never less than stunning with the screen often bathed in red, and Goblin’s propulsive score ties it all together. This is one of those films from which you can’t look away. It captures you from first scene and continues to hold you through the gory conclusion. Deep Red is an undeniably fun thrill ride and, even today, you can easily see why Argento frequently refers to it as being his personal favorite of his many films. In fact, Argento even owns a store in Rome that is called Profondo Rosso.
But you know why I really love Deep Red?
It’s all because of the relationship between David Hemmings and Daria Nicolodi. Daria Nicolodi plays Gianna Brezzi, a reporter who helps Marcus with his investigation. After three films that featured women as either victims or killers, Gianna is the first truly strong and independent woman to show up in an Argento film. I know that some people have criticized the scenes between Hemmings and Nicolodi, feeling that they drag down the pace of the movie. I could not disagree more. Both Hemmings and Nicolodi give wonderful performances and their likable chemistry feels very real.
Gianna and Marcus arm westle. (Gianna wins. Twice.)
To me, that’s what sets Deep Red apart. You care about Marcus and you care about Gianna. Yes, the mystery is intriguing and the murder set pieces are brilliantly choreographed, and Deep Red is definitely Argento at his best. But for me, the heart and soul of the film will always belong to the characters of Marcus and Gianna and the performers who brought them to life.
Deep Red was the start of Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi’s long and often contentious relationship. (Dario and Daria’s daughter, Asia Argento, was born around the same time that Deep Red was released and has directed two films, Scarlet Divaand Misunderstood, that deal with her often chaotic childhood.) This relationship would play out over the course of six films and, as much as I love those six films, it’s always a little sad to consider that, when watched in order, the provide a portrait of a doomed and dying romance, one that did not particularly end well. (It is possibly not a coincidence that, with the exception of Deep Red and Tenebrae, Daria Nicolodi suffered some type of terrible death in every film she made with Argento.)
But, regardless of what may or may not have been going on behind the scenes, Deep Red remains a triumph for both its director and its stars.
(I’m using this year’s horrorthon as an excuse to watch and review all of the films of Dario Argento. Yesterday, I reviewed The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. Today, I take a look at The Cat o’Nine Tails.)
In 1971, Dario Argento followed up the massive success of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage with his second film as a director, The Cat o’Nine Tails. While The Cat o’Nine Tails was another huge financial success, it’s never been as a critically acclaimed as Argento’s first film. Argento, himself, regularly cites The Cat o’Nine Tails as being his least favorite of all of the films that he’s directed.
Much like The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’Nine Tails is a giallo that uses it’s rather complicated mystery as an excuse (a MacGuffin, to quote Hitchcock) for several suspenseful set pieces, the majority of which end with someone suffering some sort of terrible fate. In this case, a series of murders are taking place around a mysterious medical complex, the Terzi Institute. The murders are connected to some research being done at the institute. I’m not going to spoil things by revealing what exactly is being researched but I will say that the key to the mystery is vaguely ludicrous, even by the typically flamboyant standards of the giallo genre.
But, then again, so what? The fact that the genre’s mysteries are often overly complex and feature solutions that don’t always make sense is actually one of the appeals of the giallo film. You don’t really watch a giallo for the mystery. You watch it to see how the story will be told. Perhaps more than any other genre, giallo requires a director with a strong vision.
And, if nothing else, Argento has always had a strong directorial vision. Even when you may disagree with the choices that he makes (and I’m sure we all wonder why, in his later films, Argento grew so obsessed with telepathic insects), you can’t deny that they’re always uniquely Argento. Though the film never reaches the delirious heights of The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, The Cat o’Nine Tails still has several strong set pieces. There’s a sequence involving a poisoned glass of milk that I particularly appreciate. And then there’s the long scene at the crypt, in which our two protagonists realize that they don’t really trust each other all that much. And, of course, there’s the ending. For a film that’s often dismissed as being lesser Argento, The Cat o’Nine Tails features one of Argento’s darkest endings.
The Cat o’Nine Tails is unique as being one of the only Argento films to regularly show up on TCM. A lot of that is because The Cat o’Nine Tails is perhaps the least gory of all the films that Argento has made. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t plenty of death and mayhem. There is. Blood is spilled but it never exactly flows. The Cat o’Nine Tails is an Argento film that you could probably safely watch with an elderly relative. That’s not necessarily meant as a complaint. It’s just an observation that, when compared to the panty murder in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage or the skewering in The Mother of Tears, Cat o’Nine Tails is definitely a toned down Argento film.
The other reason why The Cat o’Nine Tails is popular on TCM is because it stars none other than that classic film mainstay, Karl Malden. Continuing the Argento tradition of featuring protagonists who aren’t sure what they’ve witnessed, Malden plays a former newspaper reporter who is now blind. He teams up with another reporter (played by James Franciscus, who may not have been a great actor but who did have perfect hair) to solve the murders. Franciscus has the eyes. Malden has the brains. And Malden’s niece, Lori (Cinzia De Carolis), is largely present to provide the film with its final ironic twist.
Malden does a pretty good job in the role, too. I’ve read some reviews that have complained that Malden overacts but actually, he gives the perfect performance for the material. In fact, Malden’s unapologetically hammy performance contrasts nicely with the work of James Franciscus, which could charitably be called subdued. (Perhaps a better description would be dull…)
Cat o’Nine Tails may not be Argento’s best but I still like it. If for no other reason, watch it for Malden and that wonderfully dark ending.
The name inspires a lot of reactions. Some people will tell you that Dario Argento is one of the greatest directors of all time. Some people regularly cite him as being a prime example of an artist who hit his peak too early and who has spent the latter part of his career imitating his previous successes. Some people will tell you that his films are dangerous. He’s one of those directors whose films always seem to end up getting banned in certain communities. Other cineastes will always praise him as a superior stylist whose influence is still felt to this very day. Argento’s films have inspired thousands of horror filmmakers. His films have also inspired a countless number of viewers to fall in love with horror. Without the influence of Argento the horror genre would be not only less interesting but less profitable as well.
Myself, I’m a huge Argento fan. Yes, I do love Suspiria but then again, everyone love Suspiria. I have also made it a point to track down and watch the forgotten and/or critically reviled Argento films, like Trauma and The Phantom of the Opera. My love of Argento is so strong that I usually even find myself enjoying his less acclaimed work as much as his acknowledged triumphs. He is one of the masters of horror, a true maestro of Italian art. For the longest time, I’ve been meaning to watch and review all 21 of Argento’s cinematic thrillers. (Sadly, his one non-thriller, The Four Days, is notoriously difficult to see.) With this being October, I figured why not now?
Dario Argento made his directorial debut in 1970 with The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. Before directing his first movie, Argento had been a film critic and a screenwriter. (Among other credits, he is listed as being one of the writers of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. Interestingly enough, his co-writer was another future director, Bernardo Bertolucci.) With his very first film as a director, Argento established himself as a master of both suspense and horror.
I have seen some reviews that have identified The Bird With The Crystal Plumage as being the first giallo film. That’s not at all true. If anything, the credit for directing the first giallo should probably go to Mario Bava (who directed The Girl Who Knew Too Much in 1964) and some students of Italian cinema would even disagree with that. However, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage undoubtedly did a lot to popularize the genre outside of Italy.
The film tells the story of Sam (Tony Musante) and his girlfriend, Julia (Suzy Kendall). Sam is a writer and he’s living in Rome. Argento is not traditionally known as an actor’s director but Musante and Kendall are both remarkably sympathetic in their roles and they seem to have a very real chemistry when they’re both on-screen together. You actually do care about them as a couple and you find yourself hoping that nothing bad happens to them. One thing that I liked was that their tiny apartment looked like it was someplace where a couple actually would live, love, and try to solve a murder. Looking at Sam and Julia in that apartment (which is decorated with a picture of Albert Einstein and a poster reading “Black Power!”), you get the feeling that they have an existence outside of what you’re seeing during the film’s 94 minute running time. They feel real.
Reportedly, Tony Musante and Argento did not have a great working relationship. (Mustante was a character actor who wanted to talk about motivation. Argento was more concerned with the technical aspects of shooting the film.) Mustante may have been miserable but that actually works for his character. When we first meet Sam, he’s frustrated because he’s suffering from writer’s block. He’s so frustrated that he’s on the verge of moving back to the United States. Sam’s frustration feels real and if that’s because Musante happened to be frustrated while shooting the film, so be it. Whatever works.
One night, Sam goes for a walk and witnesses a stabbing in an art gallery. Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi) survives but it appears that her assailant has managed to escape. The police suspect that Sam might be more than just a witness so they confiscate his passport. Until the attacker is caught, Sam is stuck in Rome.
There’s a serial killer terrorizing Rome and both Sam and the police suspect that Monica nearly became the killer’s latest victim. Some of the film’s most unnerving sequences are shot from the point-of-view of the killer, a technique that both leaves the killer’s identity a secret and also makes the audience complicit in the murders. It’s as if Argento the film critic is daring the audience to consider why they’re watching what Argento the director is doing.
(And the murders in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage are brutal, even by the standards of Italian cinema. The first murder that we actually witness — which is usually referred to as being “the panty murder,” for reasons that I’m not going to freak myself out by describing — is pure and total nightmare fuel.)
Everything that you might expect to find in a giallo is present in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage. It may not have been the first but it’s definitely one of the prototypes for what the genre is usually considered to be. Graphic violence, sexual perversion, point-of-view shots, a constantly roaming camera, a dramatic musical score, a killer who wears black gloves and carries a razor, a witness who has to prove his innocence, and a solution that’s revealed only when Sam reexamines what he thinks he saw; it’s all here.
What distinguishes The Bird With The Crystal Plumage is the style with which Argento tells his story. Dario was 30 years old when he directed The Bird With The Crystal Plumage and there’s an infectious enthusiasm to the way he frames the mayhem. Like many film critics directing their first film, Argento fills his debut with homages to earlier films. You can tell he’s having a lot of fun while discovering just how far he can go without losing his audience.
46 years after it was first released, The Bird With The Crystal Plumage holds up surprisingly well. It’s a nightmarish but compulsively watchable thrill ride and it remains one of Argento’s best.
Through the Shattered Lens 