Gli occhi freddi della paura (1971)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

Enzo G. Castellari

Writers:

Leo Anchóriz (screenplay)
Leo Anchóriz (story)

Release Date:

6 April 1971 (Italy)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Thriller

Plot Keywords:

Stalker | Female Nudity | Murder | Beautiful Woman | Giallo

Cast

Giovanna Ralli	...	Anna
Frank Wolff	...	Arthur Welt
Fernando Rey	...	Juez Flower
Julián Mateos	...	Quill
Karin Schubert	...	Nightclub Actress
Leonardo Scavino	...	Hawkins the butler (as Leon Lenoir)
Franco Marletta
Gianni Garko	...	Peter Flower

Also Known As:

Cold Eyes of Fear
Desperate Moments (USA) (TV title)
Los fríos ojos del miedo (Spain)

Runtime:

Spain:81 min | USA:91 min | Italy:95 min

Country:

Italy | Spain

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Norway:15

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Cinemar

Movie Connections:

References Wait Until Dark (1967)

A Sufficient Giallo

An Eton-graduated lawyer, Peter Flower, meets an Italian prostitute, Anna, in a London nightclub, and goes to his uncle's house with her. But soon the house's butler, Hawking, is found dead, and a stranger named Quill shows himself with gun. And furthermore, the arrival of Arthur Welt sharpens the unstableness of the strange triangle of two men and one woman... I think this Italian-Spanish co-produced film, which is sometimes called cult one because of its eccentric visualisation of one character's confusion of fancy with reality, is not bad at all. It has no extraordinariness of the characters, but the each character he-or-her-self is the believable who wants to be concerned only with what he or she can assimilate to. And the story is not full of highly cinematic surprises but has something realistic and familiar, and it lacks the manifest combination of love and separateness but has of (in)security and class consciousness, and of learning and sexual warfare. Still one can point out the film has some over-stylised Italian cinema-graphical techniques and somehow stereotyped female character, Anna. Regarding the latter, one can think of various possibilities of the characteristic. For instance, it can be said Anna should not be a prostitute. If she is the lover or, in better setting, one of the lovers of Peter, then her influence upon him and/or his upon her can be much more complex and profound, and so forth. But the ongoing story of the film has cinematically advance hints, and even offhanded meeting of Anna and Peter, who are first and last strangers each other, has something latently important and therefore their otherness has its own meaning. The director/co-writer E.G.Castellari could do more than what really did, but what he did was, I think, cinematically sufficient.