Shudder Saturday: The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971)

This might be a very early feature from Dario Argento (the second film he helmed, and also the second of his animal-themed trilogy), but this rather sedate giallo certainly has a lot of elements in place that the director would become known for throughout the next couple of decades.

The basic plot concerns a number of killings that seem to be connected to a scientific laboratory. As the mystery deepens, it becomes something more and more interesting to a journalist (Carlo Giordani, played by James Franciscus) and a blind puzzle enthusiast (Franco Arnò, played by Karl Malden). But as they get closer to the truth, they also get themselves targeted by the killer.

Although a bit bloodless compared to what Argento would deliver within the next few years, The Cat O'Nine Tails is a fun murder mystery that is punctuated by death scenes often enough to help the pacing of the film. For fans of this kind of thing, you get everything you could expect from an early 1970s Italian thriller. A handsome lead. Someone with a disability that doesn't stop them from being quite brilliant, yet critically holds them back from solving the mystery any time before the grand finale (of course). Some wonderfully cheesy dialogue, especially in a scene showing the sexual chemistry about to shatter the beaker when James Franciscus is being as forward as he can be with Catherine Spaak. A bit of gratuitous nudity. A ridiculous explanation for the killings, with some enjoyably silly science backing it up. And, of course, the usual equivalence of any deviance from the entrenched hetero-normative standards with the potential to be a dangerous psychopath.

Franciscus is good in his role, all noble intent and twinkly eyes, and Malden does very well as the blind man who ends up becoming an invaluable assistant as the investigation gathers momentum. Spaak is made to start off icy and full of attitude, before thawing out in the company of the lead hunk, and she does fine in her role. Small turns from Aldo Reggiani, Horst Frank, and Carlo Alighiero help to remind you of the many red herrings to be considered as the killer, up until the reveal that we get in the final sequence. And it's also worth mentioning that Cinzia De Carolis is a lot less irritating than she could have been in the role of Lori, the niece of Malden's character, and someone who provides him with one or two essential observations.

Argento is already showing his eye for interesting shot choices (especially extreme close-ups that show an unflinching eye looking at victims), but there's still some way to go before he would have the style and flair that would make his more celebrated outings stand out from the crowd. The best thing here is seeing him hold back, setting up some nice moments of tension with simpler shot choices and camera movement, in line with a plot that is slightly less convoluted than many of his other works.

It may be more for completists than anyone seeking out the cream of the crop, when it comes to either gialli or Argento films, but it's still more worthwhile than many others you could choose, including some from the latter part of Dario's filmography.

6/10

There's a lovely disc available here.

Prime Time: The Last Shark (1981)

Stop me if you've heard this one. A great white shark starts to cause problems by munching on oblivious people who are trying to enjoy time in the sea. There's a big event coming up (it's a wind-surfing regatta), a local official who doesn't want a pesky shark problem interrupting the festivities, and so it comes down to one determined man (Peter Benton, played by James Franciscus) and one shark hunter (Ron Hamer, played by Vic Morrow) to try and deal with the shark before it snacks on any more funseekers.

Directed by Enzo G. Castellari, The Last Shark is a terrible film. The script, by Marc Princi, is hilarious, the shark is hilarious, and the way the film so closely parallels Jaws is also hilarious (it's one of a number of films that you can easily describe as Jawsploitation). But being hilarious wouldn't have been bad if it all hadn't also felt so lazy and careless. There isn't even the kind of content you get from other Italian . . . "homages" to blockbuster hits. No excess of gore, no gratuitous nudity, there wasn't even one grizzled warrior with an eyepatch and a flamethrower attached to a severed arm. Any of these elements would have improved the film, and having none of them just feels like a huge missed opportunity.

Remember the famous scene in Jaws that has Roy Scheider scooping chum into the water and being startled by the sudden appearance of the shark into uttering THAT line? The Last Shark knows it cannot compete with that level of brilliance. But it does have someone dangling a large chunk of meat from a helicopter as part of a plan so dumb that even the shark looks bemused for a few seconds (or maybe I was projecting at that point).

Morrow is very enjoyable in his role (a mix of Hooper and Quint, with a terrible attempt at an Irish, or maybe Scottish, accent), and both Franciscus and Joshua Sinclair (playing that optimistic, ambitious town official) do what's asked of them, with Sinclair gamely taking part in what is most definitely the silliest scene in the entire movie.

But what of the shark itself? Surely that is the star of the show. Not quite. In fact, when it rises out of the water you could be forgiven for thinking that a balloon has somehow floated up from below the tideline. A balloon covered in paper mache, with melted buttons to give it eyes. You get the idea. It's not exactly convincing or scary. Does this mean that Castellari and co. take a leaf out of Spielberg's book and hide the shark away for most of the runtime? No it does not. It could have been worse, but the shark is given far too much screentime, and the situation isn't helped by scenes featuring footage of an actual shark that never matches with the main creature that we're supposed to be watching.

Castellari has some decent titles in his filmography, especially if you're a fan of Westerns or post-apocalyptic films. This is not one of his better efforts. It still has me smiling while I type out this review, however, and it's hard to resist its goofy charm if you know what you're letting yourself in for.

4/10

Do you really want this on DVD? Here it is.
Do NOT pay for this one, but use the link to find other goodies.

The Valley Of Gwangi (1969)

Also known as the one with the cowboys and dinosaurs. The Valley Of Gwangi may not have been the first movie featuring the work of Ray Harryhausen that I ever saw, but it's the one that has stayed at the forefront of my memory over the years. While it's not the best of his works, it captured my imagination and fired up my love for creature features.

The story is all about a travelling wild west show that hopes to revive its fortunes with a new addition, a tiny horse that they will place on a platform atop a normal horse once it has been trained to dance. The tiny horse was acquired, at great risk, from an area known as the Forbidden Valley and a group of gypsies are determined that it be returned there. Everything falls apart one evening when the tiny horse is stolen and taken back to the area of the Forbidden Valley. A chase ensues and, eventually, people end up moving aside some rocks and squeezing their way through a passageway that leads to a prehistoric world. A world that holds a pterodactyl here and an allosaurus there. It's dangerous, but could also prove to be quite profitable.

Mixing the cowboy genre with some prehistoric beasties is something that had been done before (this movie is, apparently, a remake of The Beast Of Hollow Mountain), but I had never seen those two worlds collide until I first saw The Valley Of Gwangi. The film seemed to have everything in place designed to appeal specifically to my interests.

James Franciscus and the beautiful Gila Golan play the leads (with plenty of potential to love or hate one another) and do a good job, while Laurence Naismith is the professor who is able to keep everyone informed on just what dinosaurs appear onscreen, Gustavo Rojo is the bad apple of the bunch and young Curtis Arden has fun as the smart, money-making Lope.

Director Jim O'Connolly does fine with the material - a riff on King Kong, written by William Bast and Julian More - and keeps things moving along nicely in the first half before the action really kicks in during the second half. The stop motion effects from Harryhausen? Well, they're still the wonderful, warm creations that you'd expect from the man, even if they're not among his finest moments.

It's easy to lose this one amongst a pile of better Harryhausen films to choose from, but The Valley Of Gwangi remains a perfect film to stick on during a wet, dreary afternoon.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Valley-Gwangi-James-Franciscus/dp/B0000Z0HMQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368208486&sr=8-1&keywords=the+valley+of+gwangi