Featured Blu-ray Review: The Cat o’ Nine Tails
September 3, 2018
The Cat o’ Nine Tails: Special Edition - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray
The Cat o’ Nine Tails is the second in Argento’s Animal Trilogy. It was rushed out into production after The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was a big hit. For much of Argento’s career, he considered this film to be his weakest. It was also critically panned when it first came here. Is it really this bad? Or was it treated unfairly when it first came out?
The film begins with a blind man, Franco “Cookie” Arnò, walking with his niece, Lori, late at night. She’s telling a story about one of her classmates. They pass a car and Franco hears one of the occupants saying, “I’m not interested in blackmailing you.” After this, Franco walks a little ways and pretends his shoelace in untied. He asked Lori to look into the car and its occupants, but she can’t see the face of the second man.
When they get home and Lori is asleep, Franco thinks he hears something. We see what he hears, a guard being knocked out. We see this in a first person view, which then continues as our attacker sneaks into a medical facility, into the records, and goes to one of the filing cabinets marked Genetics. It isn’t until one of the scientists tries to leave and sees the guard that anyone knows something is wrong.
The next day, we learn where this took place, The Terzi Institute for Genetic Research. Franco is walking by the front gates when a reporter, Carlo Giordani, bumps into him. At first, Carlo tells him to watch where he’s going, until he sees that Franco is blind. Franco asks him some questions, but Carlo just got there and doesn’t have many details. Carlo is able to get into the building and talks to Righetto, a photographer, before speaking to Police Inspector Spimi. It’s an odd case, as nothing was stolen. Their conversation just stops when Anna Terzi walks by. She’s the boss’s daughter and she’s stylish enough to stop conversations.
We follow Anna to her father’s office, where he’s meeting with the police and some of his top executives. He’s convinced they should leave it to the police, since nothing was stolen. However, Dr. Casoni, one of the executives, thinks this is a case of industrial espionage. It makes sense, since The Terzi Institute does some cutting edge research in genetics and nothing physical was stolen. However, Professor Terzi laughs it off as a silly suggestion.
We soon learn that something was stolen and Dr. Calabresi knows what was stolen. As he tells his fiancée, he’s the only one who knows what was stolen and he knows who stole it. He doesn’t want anyone else to know, because he thinks he could use this information to get ahead in the company. But first, he has to meet with someone at a train station. You can probably guess this meeting goes poorly, so poorly he ends up dead. The train that hit him was carrying some celebrity, so the paparazzi that are waiting for her are able to get some pictures for the papers.
The next day, Lori brings Franco the daily paper. While they are talking about the crossword puzzle he’s designing, Lori sees the picture on the front page of the paper. The man who died is the same man who was in the car that night. Lori reads some of the story to Franco and we learn the story was written by none other than Carlo Giordani. With that, the pair visit Carlo at work and start asking him questions about the so-called accident. Franco was an investigative journalist before the accident that cost him his sight, so this story is something that’s got him interested. He thinks there might be some information on the full picture, since it is likely what is seen in the paper is just a cropped image. Sure enough, when they call Righetto and ask him to check the negative, there’s a hand just on the edge of the frame that could have pushed Dr. Calabresi. The trio of them get ready to go to Righetto’s to see the image for themselves, but the killer gets there first.
The killer seems to be always one step ahead of them, but that won’t stop the trio from continuing the investigation.
Before I get to my opinions on the film itself, it is important to note that the film’s central mystery is based on outdated science. The idea that, and this is a major spoiler for the motivation of the killer, the idea that there is a criminal gene is laughable now. The idea that it could be XYY variant that could be responsible for criminal behavior moves into the offensive category. That said, it’s treated as a MacGuffin and not with any real scientific rigor, so you can easily ignore the details and still enjoy the movie.
Dario Argento considered this film to be one of his weaker early films, mainly because it was too American. It does have a lot less sense of his personal style than most of his films, so if you are a fan of Giallo, then The Cat o’ Nine Tails could be a disappointment. However, if you are just looking for a compelling murder mystery with a cast of potential killers, then this film will provide that for you. The “Nine” in the name refers to the number of leads in the movie, so it is not exactly a tight script. Most of the suspects don’t have a good conclusion to their arcs and the film concludes rather abruptly. You can tell there was supposed to be an epilogue.
Fortunately, the cast is very good and that more than makes up for the flaws is the overall story. It is no surprise that Karl Malden is excellent, while he and Cinzia De Carolis have surprisingly good chemistry together. Having child actors in such key roles is always a risk, but it pays off. Likewise, James Franciscus and Catherine Spaak work well together. I especially like the car chase scene, where Anna is trying to lose the cops and driving fast enough to get Carlo very worried. It’s a fun scene.
Extras begin with an audio commentary track with two film historians, Alan Jones and Kim Newman. Nine Lives is a 16-minute interview with Dario Argento. The Writer O’ Many Tales is a 35-minute long interview with the co-writer Dardano Sacchetti. Child Star is an 11-minute interview with Cinzia De Carolis, who played Lori in the movie. The final interview featurette is Giallo in Turin, which is a 15-minute interview with the production manager, Angelo Iacono. Finally, there is a look at the original ending, which was deemed “too American” and cut from the film.
Overall, that’s 80 minutes of extras, as well as the audio commentary track. That’s enough to justify the Special Edition label.
The Cat o’ Nine Tails is a flawed but engaging thriller. It doesn’t have the sense of personal style that Dario Argento’s films usually have, but if you are a fan of his or of thrillers in general, then it is worth checking out. The Special Edition Blu-ray has enough extras that it is easily worth picking up, especially if you balked at the price of the Limited Edition Blu-ray Combo Pack that came out earlier this year.
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The Movie
The Extras
The Verdict
Filed under: Argento’s Animal Trilogy, Dario Argento, James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Dardano Sacchetti, Catherine Spaak, Cinzia De Carolis, Pier Paolo Capponi, Vittorio Congia, Tino Carraro, Aldo Regianni, Carlo Alighiero, Rada Rassimov, Angelo Iacono