Savant Preview Review: The Cat '0 Nine Tails The Cat '0 Nine Tails Anchor Bay 1971 / Color / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 (Techniscope)/ 112m. / Il Gatto a nove code Starring James Franciscus, Karl Malden Cinematography Erico Menczer Production Designer Carlo Leva Film Editor Franco Fraticelli Original Music Ennio Morricone Writing credits Dario Argento, Luigi Collo and Dardano Sacchetti Produced by Salvatore Argento Directed by Dario Argento
	Reviewed by Glenn Erickson Based on fan appreciation, Dario Argento is probably the most popular EuroHorror director. Atypically for the genre, his films had wide, quality theatrical releases in America, even if they were sometimes censored first. Argento fully developed the 'killing machine' wing of giallo horror begun by Mario Bava, and his '70s films are the slickest of the bunch. The Cat 'O Nine Tails is his second feature, more straight murder mystery than horror film, a more intricately plotted pot-boiler than his The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Synopsis: A string of grisly murders around a research institute gets reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus) jugular-deep in trouble. Who is masterminding the killings, and why? Puzzle composer Franco Arno (Karl Malden) is blind now, but was a detective when he had his sight. Are the clues he provides too good to be true? The daughter of the head of the institute (Catherine Spaak) soon becomes involved with Carlo. Could either be playing a role in the slayings? Euro Horror is about style, and Dario Argento certainly has one of his own. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Argento wasn't forced to create on a shoestring. The Cat O' Nine Tails is beautifully photographed, lushly produced, and has a fine Morricone score. Two name American stars topline the cast. Argento would later earn the accolades of film critics by dropping the mechanical murder-mystery trappings of his 'animal' trio (Bird, Cat and Four Flies on Grey Velvet) and going for pure macabre, without the constrictures of a formal plotline. This made them appropriately dreamlike and 'delirious', even as they made less and less sense.  1 Cat has the structure of an ordinary murder mystery. Puzzling murders, predictable events (like the photographer with the mystery negative being killed just before he can turn over crucial negatives), and a cast made exclusively of red herrings doesn't offer much to Agatha Christie fans. What there are is is style, and the novelty of the Roman locations Argento shows off in, for instance, an expert car chase scene. His suspense style withholds information rather than provides it, making Argento another so-called 'Hitchcock imitator' whose style has little in common with the master. Frequent scenes of corridors being stalked by Argento's subjective camera show off some very polished camerawork, but function only as a convenient plot-sustaining device, providing 'tense' padding while concealing the identity of the killer. There is no subjective-objective tension, as with classic Hitchcock subjective camera shots, and we certainly don't identify with the killer by this technique alone. That is, not unless the actual thrill of the movie is to ignore everything else and simply function as the killer, cruising in the dark for his next victim. Cool and sleek in tone, the 'feel' of this Argento is that of an Italian fashion magazine, with the lights turned down, and Ennio Morricone playing on the radio. Cat isn't the string of violent setpieces one would expect. A slaying on a train platform has some visceral shock cuts of the body tumbling along the track, but from then on the killings become secondary to the assembly of a complex puzzle. They can get brutal, but there are no 'clever' gimmicks like giant jagged statuaries falling on people, or witnesses trapped in glass cages. Argento downplays the gore in this feature, but it shows him at his least affected. Even an unpleasant subplot with a small girl threatened by a killer shows restraint. No wonder the Hardy Encyclopedia of Horror doesn't even list this title. The cast plays the story straight and serious. Can't-get-arrested-in-Hollywood James Franciscus, a reasonable actor who almost never got a respectable part, carries the film well and is definitely not slumming. The surprise is Oscar winner Karl Malden, also at a career low. Between classy Kazans and television security, he either took this job for the vacation in Italy, or perhaps because he was attracted to this quirky blind character. The rest of cast provide character turns in colorful parts (what seems to pass for narrative interest with screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti). You can get big names for tiny roles if they're strange enough, as with Mario Adorf's brief turn in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Savant can't disguise his limited response to Argento. This may seem unfair on the outside - why champion Bava, when Argento's films are bigger, slicker, and far more popular? Is there some crime in being the son of an already successful Italian producer? With Mario Bava movies, it's clear in most every picture that he's deeply in love with the images themselves and is communicating to us on a very personal level. He certainly strayed in different directions (I really can't get through Twitch of the Death Nerve) but always returned to his craftsman-artisan roots. And he does this at the expense of success, avoiding big productions and powerful producers like the plague. Why I value that higher than Argento's glossy mayhem machines must be purely personal. All this is to say, if you enjoy the Argento brand of terror, you'll likely find The Cat 'O Nine Tails a real thrill ride. I don't know what was cut in the 1971 American release, but I believe it was even rated PG .... and since this widescreen presentation is uncut and unrated, it's probably catnip time for Argentinites. Anchor Bay's DVD of The Cat 'O Nine Tails is another of their well-mounted special edition discs of arcane EuroHorror.  2 Previous tape copies can't begin to compare with the 16:9 detail and crisp color found here, and of course the widescreen compositions transform the film into something entirely different. Having the choice of language tracks and subtitles is icing on the cake. Although Franciscus and Malden speak for themselves in English, their Italian counterparts aren't bad. English subtitles didn't appear, but that function's been acting up on my machine, so I can't be certain they're there or not. (Gee, very helpful, Glenn.) A nice video interview is provided with Argento, his screenwriter Sacchetti, and a welcome Ennio Morricone. Depending on who you talk to, Argento may or may not have contributed much to Once Upon a Time in the West but this supplement asserts that he and Bernardo Bertolucci were responsible for the whole script. For rarity alone, hearing from the screenwriter of a EuroHorror is a new experience. Anchor Bay does a nice job with these no-fuss interview extras. Some DVD docus are becoming overlong pieces of fluff, and AB doesn't make you sit through a lot of padding. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Cat '0 Nine Tails rates: Movie: Good Video: Excellent Sound: Excellent Dolby Digital 2.0 English, French, Italian Supplements: Interviews with Dario Argento, Ennio Morricone, and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti; trailers, tv and radio spots, radio interviews Karl Malden and James Fransicsus, poster and still gallery Packaging: Alpha Pak Reviewed: June 30, 2001 Footnotes: 1. It's amusing to read letters to Tim Lucas in Video Watchdog asking him to explain plot inconsistencies, illogical events, and unexplainable characters - only to have Lucas respond with, 'What, you wanted it to make sense?' In movies like Inferno, Suspiria and Phenomena, the actual story is barely more than a pretense. Return 2. AB has gotten some really unfair discussion board press lately from the less forgiving zealots, who bludgeon the label for errors, usually the omission of short scenes and details here and there. These movies were cut and recut for different countries and territories within countries, and then reissued and recut again. Who can say for sure, when Anchor Bay gets good elements, which elements are original and which are the 'incomplete' versions? Should the AB boxes say, "Not uncut because we can't be absolutely sure because we haven't examined every known ntsc and pal release including greymarket versions."? Return [Savant Links] [Article Index] [Review Index] [About Savant] DVD Savant Text © Copyright 2007 Glenn Erickson Go BACK to the Savant Main Page. Return to Top of Page