"Il gatto a nove code" (The cat o'Nine Tails), filmed in 1971, is the second film by Dario Argento,Ī horror thriller still distant from his horror works for which he will later become famous on an
Starring James Franciscus, Karl Malden and Catherine Spaak. As in The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, he really shines in the often bloody set-pieces and he here starts to display the macabre sense of humour that would inform much of his later work – in one scene, an angry barber starts admonishing Carlo while shaving him with an open blade for daring to suggest that the killer may be someone from his profession, cutting to huge close-ups of the open razor grazing Carlo’s neck as the barber rails against the press.The Cat o' Nine Tails (Italian: Il gatto a nove code) is a 1971 giallo film written and directed byĭario Argento. Industrial espionage, blackmail and corporate assassins don’t seem to have quite engaged him like the high strangeness of his later films. It’s a serviceable enough thriller plot with a few outré moments but it’s not as “out there” as some of his other work. And therein, perhaps, is the explanation for why Argento thinks so little of the film. The problem is that The Cat O’Nine Tail’s plot, though more structurally sound than that of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage, is rather mundane. It was certainly a prevalent myth in the 1970s.Īll of Argento’s early preoccupations are present and correct in Gatto – the protagonist who sees (or in this case, hears) something, the meaning of which initially escapes him but which later proves to be a vital clue although the characters are Italian, the two male leads are played by Americans and seem as adrift as the Americans abroad that feature in so many of his films and another skilful marriage between visuals and music, again provided by the great Ennio Morricone.
FILM IL GATTO A NOVE CODE SERIES
Kenneth Royce’s series of novels beginning with The XYY Man in 1970, later adapted for British television by Ivor Marshall and Granada Television also made the same claim, as did the By the Pricking of My Thumbs… episode of Doomwatch (1970-1972). There’s certainly no evidence that it can lead to increased criminal tendencies as is suggested here, though to be fair to the writers, they were hardly unique in thinking so. For the most part, those afflicted by the condition show no outward signs or symptoms, though there is evidence that some will be taller than average, suffer worse acne or be at increased risk of learning difficulties. The script, co-written by Bryan Edgar Wallace – son of famed crime writer Edgar Wallace – from a story by Argento, Dardano Sacchetti, Luigi Cozzi and Luigi Collo, revolves around XYY syndrome, a genetic disorder in which males are born with an extra Y chromosome. Aided by his young niece Lori (Cinzia De Carolis) and reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), he uncovers skulduggery in the scientific community, the conspiracy involved in which will stop at nothing, even murder, to keep their secrets.
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Once again boasting a convoluted plot, it follows the investigations of blind former journalist Franco “Cookie” Arnò (Karl Malden) who overhears what seems to be a blackmail plot outside the genetics research facility, the Terzi Institute.
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But compared to the staggeringly assured Bird, it seems rather mundane – might one even dare to suggest that it’s a bit ordinary? Certainly it contains fewer sequences that are as memorable as those found in the earlier film though it still has much to commend it. It’s not to say that Cat is a bad film – far from it.
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Argento himself has expressed displeasure with the way the film turned out and has frequently called it the least favourite of his films – and as anyone who has doggedly clung to his career over the past three decades in the increasingly forlorn hope that he might find his old form again will attest, that’s quite the admission. But it was the second film from Dario Argento, following hot on the heels of his dazzling debut L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo/ The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and by comparison, it doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Had it been made by anyone else, Il gatto a nove code/ The Cat o’Nine Tails (1971) would have been a well above average thriller.