"La porta sul buio" Testimone oculare (1973)

Director:

Roberto Pariante

Writers:

Dario Argento (writer)
Luigi Cozzi (writer)

TV Series:

"La porta sul buio" (1973)

Original Air Date:

September 1973 (Season 1, Episode 3)

Genre:

Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Giallo

Cast

Marilù Tolo	...	Roberta Leoni
Riccardo Salvino	...	Guido Leoni
Glauco Onorato	...	Police Inspector
Altea De Nicola	...	Anna
Gino Pagnani		(as Luigi Pagnani Fusconi)

Runtime:

53 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Company:

Seda Spettacoli

Trivia:

This originally aired as the third episode of Italian director Dario Argento's failed television series "La porta sul buio" (English Translation: "Door into Darkness"). Other episodes in the series are Vicino di casa, Il (1973) (TV), Tram, Il (1973) (TV), and Bambola, La (1973) (TV).

Door Into Darkness

Door Into Darkness: Eyewitness (1973)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Third film in Argento's series has Roberta (Marilu Tolo) driving home one night and as she turns a curse a woman falls out into the street. The car doesn't make contact with the woman but Roberta gets out and notices the woman has been stabbed and she then sees a man, dressed in black, in the bushes. She makes it to a local pub where she calls the police but the main Inspector (Clauco Onorato) doesn't believe her because they can't find a body, a murderer or even a drop of blood at the crime scene. Soon the woman begins to fear that the killer will be coming after her. Apparently Argento was so displeased with the final film turned in by Roberto Pariante that he went back and re-filmed everything himself. There's certainly enough visual evidence here to back up this story as we get several familiar trappings that Argento would use in future giallos. We get the typical killer with black gloves but the sequence where the killer steps out of the bushes was very effective and managed to contain a nice little chill. The rest of the film was good but I must admit that I figured out what was going on within the first ten minutes. I'm not sure if I just get lucky and guess what's going to happen or if the film was just obvious but it didn't fool me for a second. That didn't hurt the film too much as both Tolo and Onorato are very good in their roles and they make the film fun to watch. The ending doesn't pack any suspense, which was a disappointment but Argento made up for this with some nice atmosphere. The visual style of the film is pretty lacking compared to other Argento movies but that's to be expected considering this was made for television. Argento directed two of the four entries in this series and while this is a good one, I think THE TRAM was even better, if flawed itself.