Nov 25th The Cat o’ Nine Tails
This is part of my “Watching every Dario Argento movie, ever” category. Here I go through all the movies written and directed by Dario Argento, and provide you with the pleasure of reading my views on them!
The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971, original title: Il Gatto a Nove Code) might very well be the coolest movie Argento has ever made, which, frankly, doesn’t take that much. I mean, inviting your friends over to drink cappuccino and wear berets wouldn’t work too well if you were watching somebody getting shanked with a razor blade in Tenebre, would it?
The Cat o’ Nine Tails is a bit different. Here you have cool cars in cool chase scenes (some of which are fantastically shot), with cool men delivering cool lines to cool women. Yet, for being an Argento movie and a giallo, there is little blood or gore, and quite a bit of plot. In fact, the whole story is quite excellent, with more tensity than The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
The premise surrounds a blind man who accidentally overhears a suspicious conversation which has him thrown into a world of murder, intrigue and biochemistry. Yes. I kid you not. Biochemistry. A large part of the story surrounds the XXY syndrome, a chromosome abnormality which makes people more prone to commit violent crimes.
In other words, this is more of a pure suspense thriller than most of Argento’s work, and a very good one at that. As often as he is called “the Italian Hitchcock,” this is really the only Argento movie I can think of that is very much in the style of “The Master of Suspense.” (Do You Like Hitchcock? being the obvious exception.)
The soundtrack is, as with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, provided by Ennio Morricone, and some good music it is. As for the filming, there are some excellent shots to be seen, though not as over the top as some of Argento’s later work.
Most of all, The Cat o’Nine Tails is probably one of Argento’s most accessible movies. No crazy Surpiria/Inferno type surrealism to be seen here. This one is worth checking out for anyone who likes a good thriller without too much gore.
For more, check out IMDb.
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[...] part of the trilogy, this movie feels a whole lot more like a pure giallo than The Cat o’ Nine Tails. The plot of a man set up to commit a murder by a photographer in a creepy mask who continues to [...]