TRIBUTES AND RETROSPECTIVES
From our Correspondent |
The Cat o' Nine Tails
Il gatto a nove code
Dario Argento
1971 - Italy / Germany / France - 1h52
int. -12 ans
Reporter Carlo Giordanni and Franco Arno, a former journalist who has gone blind, are investigating the murder of a member of the Terzi Institute, specialised in genetic research and chromosomal predispositions to violence.
“The second part of his animal trilogy, begun a year earlier with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Dario Argento creates, with The Cat o'Nine Tails, a delightful variation on the codes of the giallo, while at the same time paying homage to the Italian Gothic horror in a famous foggy graveyard sequence. Around a plot filled with enigmas and pitfalls, Argento sharpens his style. Shot in CinemaScope and with an international cast (James Franciscus, from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and Karl Malden, already an experienced Hollywood actor and star of the small screen in The Streets of San Francisco), Argento's second film finally puts family and filiation as the source of all evil and criminal pathologies.” (Jean-Baptiste Thoret; critic and filmmaker)
CAST AND CREW
Cast : James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak, Pier Paolo Capponi, Horst Frank, Rada Rassimov
Screenplay : Dario Argento, Luigi Cozzi, Dardano Sacchetti
Cinematography : Erico Menczer
Sound : Mario Ronchetti
Editing : Franco Fraticelli
Music : Ennio Morricone
Production : Seda Spettacoli, Terra-Filmkunst, Labrador Films
French distributor : Wild Bunch