The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1971, Review) Blue Underground Blu-ray
Director: Dario Argento
Cast: James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak, Pier Paolo Capponi
Blue Underground / All Region / Unrated / 2.35:1 Widescreen / ENGLISH: DTS-HD Stereo, ENGLISH: DTS-HD Mono, FRENCH: Dolby Digital Stereo, ITALIAN: Dolby Digital Surround / SUBTITLES: English, Spanish, French / 112 minutes / BUY FROM TLACULT
EXTRAS: Tales Of The Cat – Interviews with Writer/Director Dario Argento, Co-Writer Dardano Sacchetti, and Composer Ennio Morricone / Theatrical Trailers / TV Spots / Radio Spots / Radio Interviews with Stars James Franciscus and Karl Malden
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Franco, a blind puzzle maker, walks past a car with his darling niece and overhears some potentially suspicious activity. Not able to cast aside his love for a puzzle or mystery of any kind, he tells the little girl to get a good look at the men in the car just in case. The next day someone breaks into the Terzi Institute, a genetics facility studying criminal behavior, but seemingly nothing is taken. Could it be some sort of corporate espionage? One of the men Franco saw in the car turns up in the newspaper dead and this along with the break-in gets Franco’s sleuthing juices flowing. He soon meets Carlo, a cocky, handsome reporter who also begins investigating using his sources on the police force. The two crimes are linked and now people involved with the institute are turning up dead. Will Franco and Carlo be next on the hit list? How would blind Franco even know if he was unless the hit list was in braille?
This is Argento’s second film –his first being The Bird with the Crystal Plumage– and in my opinion, he hadn’t quite yet hit his stride. There are hints of the director he would turn out to be; the visually stunning colors, the violent carnage and the overall “style over content” argument. But Cat was just a less interesting, boring Hitchcock clone. You could definitely see the Hitchcockian influence in not only a lot of the actual camera shots, but the storytelling itself. But Argento didn’t quite know how to craft an intriguing suspense piece without forcing some things. Example 1: A woman calls with the name of the killer, but instead of just telling them, she’s murdered before they can meet. Example 2: Our Dynamic Duo finds a note left by one of the victims with the name of the killer on it and decides to not open it right away, instead Franco is attacked by the assailant. The whole story was silly, too long and boring. Even when the killer was exposed I barely remembered who it was and I really didn’t care by that point.
There were a few, very few good points to the film, like the music by Ennio Morricone who to this day is cranking out some of the best soundtracks and scores in cinema. He is mostly known for doing tons of Italian films like the “Spaghetti Westerns” and gialli. His score in Cat O’ Nine Tails stood out in an otherwise tedious affair. The music really set the mood and the table for a very suspenseful time, but Morricone can only do so much. The actress who played the daughter of the institute’s owner also did her best to save the movie. Catherine Spaak is a wonderful actress who steals every scene she is in with her sexy charm and beguiling beauty and yes, she shows her small but magnificent breasts for a brief moment. Overall though I would have to say that this Argento entry into Italian horror cinema was barely horror at all. It was more Agatha Christie than Lucio Fulci. More mystery than monster. In other words, not Argento’s best work.
But the film looks and sounds as good as it ever has on Blue Underground’s new HD blu-ray coming out in a couple of days. If you are already a fan of this movie or a Dario Argento completist, the upgrade is well worth the money. From the research I did, this movie has always been victim of poor transfers, muting the signature Argento color palette and destroying the clarity of his camera. But this high definition transfer from the original negative does away with all of that and finally gives you the full aesthetic experience. I guess I will just have to stick to Argento’s later films to fully appreciate his canon. Give me the Three Mothers over the Animal Trilogy any day.
