Cat O Nine Tails (1971) Dario Argento’s Grizzly Americanised Giallo (Review)

In 1970, Dario Argento came flying out of the gates with one of the best genre debuts you’re likely to see. Bird with the Crystal Plumage not only made a lot of money on the international box-office, it also made Argento a name on the international scene. He followed that up in 1971 with Cat O’ Nine Tails – a movie that many trailers on this new UHD 4K Blu-Ray describe as “9 times the thrills of Crystal Plumage”. While not in the remotest sense true, it is part of an early career “trilogy”, one tied together by the most marginal of premises – the animal trilogy completed by Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971). 

Karl Malden is Franco “Cookie” Arno, a blind former ace reporter who whiles away the hours looking after his young niece, Lori (Cinzia De Carolis). Unlike many other giallo that have the lead investigating murders because of a policing failure, Cat O’ Nine Tails uses the contrivance of a journalistic hunch to push Arno and and his young niece to dig deep into a case of serial murders and a convoluted case of corporate espionage revolving around the Terzi medical institute, Carlo (James Franciscus) and heiress Anna Terzi (Catherine Spaak). All this being said, it is a giallo, therefore the narrative is just a hook to hang the usual tricks of these yellow spined, murder mysteries.

That being said, it is stated in an interview with Argento himself, that he tried to incorporate one too many americanisms into the script – as such, it is not one of his favourite productions. There is a degree of truth to that, and, honestly, you can’t really blame him. His debut film went straight to the top of the American box office, any young director would want to try and build upon that sort of success. That all being said, there is a cavernous gulf between “not being one of his favourites” and being bad. After all, this is long before his creative slump in the 90s and utter stagnation in the 2000s. 

Music plays a huge role in the legacy of Italian genre; Argento alone is tied to Goblin, (Suspiria & Deep Red). Synth and Electronica are synonymous with the godfather of Giallo, that being so, Ennio Morricone is not someone that you’d associate with this type of work. Which is odd as the greatest cinematic composer who ever lived worked on all of the “animal trilogy”, yet they aren’t movies people think of, musically. Morriconne’s jazz composition here ranks up there with Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebra and when you consider that Suspiria is thought of as one of the all time greats – this is not damning with faint praise. Like he does in Crystal Plumage, Morricone uses Jazz as a tool to negotiate the fractured psyche of the killer through soundscapes. 

Being the inspiration behind genre forming classics like John Carpenter’s Halloween and Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), stabbing is part of the very giallo DNA. Unlike many of the Cat O’ Nine Tails peers, most of the POV shots culminate in someone being strangled to death, which, honestly, is pretty weak when you weigh them up to the spectacle found elsewhere at the time. Weak, ugly, whatever adjective you want to use, those prolonged struggles are part of the puzzle as to why this is one of the less favourably looked upon stops on Argento’s golden run. On the periphery of those point of view shots are extreme blink and you’ll miss them close up of an eye. The editing is superlative, with some transitions replicating the blinking of this eye we’ve seen through and into. This experimentation for experimentation’s sake marked the Italians out as some of the finest cinematographers in modern cinema history. That this feels fairly average in the grand scheme says everything about this hugely impressive artistry found in this era of Italian cinema.

Whether you call gialli horror or thriller, the setpieces are the key thing that gets people through the door. In one scene, someone is pushed in front of a train, and Argento shows the unfortunate victim’s head bouncing off the front window. It might not have the reputation to go with it, but here I am going on record stating that this is one of the most interesting, unexpected and shocking death scenes in any era of genre cinema. Up there with that gunshot in Shinya Tsukomoto’s Kotoko. The other scene worthy of mention sees the black gloved killer eventually rumbled, falling off the roof, screaming the bloodiest of screams and dragging his hands down the elevator cables. To call this wince-inducing would be selling it short. Few movies ever make violence look painful, this is one of the few genuinely painful scenes of violence as proven by a hardened horror such as myself sucking the air through my teeth for every agonising second.

The 4K print used on this new Arrow Blu-Ray is stunning, more importantly they’ve avoided the key issue with ease. In making a film that played in grindhouses pristine, sometimes the dirt and grime that was part of the film’s personality is washed away. Arrow is better than that. I will admit though, Cat O’ Nine Tails is an odd title to be given the 4K treatment, it is my belief that this is one for the hardcore, Argento completist – if you don’t fit that bill the other movies I’ve referenced elsewhere are much better stop offs. For those of us that do fit that bill, this new reissue is very much worth the upgrade. 

THANKS FOR READING ROB’S REVIEW OF CAT O NINE TAILS

Louis Theroux has always been fascinated by Michael Jackson. And Graham and Aidan have always been fascinated by Louis Theroux. So it makes perfect sense – ish – to follow up yesterday’s Moonwalker episode with a look at Theroux’s 2003 documentary trying to gain access to the King of Pop at a difficult time in, frankly, both men’s careers. Join us for a discussion of all four of the men this film focuses on: the national treasure that is Theroux, the more problematic figure of Jackson, the recently disgraced Martin Bashir… and Uri Geller.

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