Cold Eyes of Fear

By no means the best giallo I've seen, this Enzo Castellari tale of ___ drags horribly and maintains little suspense. Set in Swinging London (but filmed primarily in Rome), the movie finds young lawyer Gianni Garko about to seduce prostitute Giovanna Ralli at his swank house. They stumble upon the butler's dead body, undoubtedly a victim of temperate ruffian Julián Mateos, who then terrorizes the couple with his gun and leather suit. Judge Fernando Rey, who keep a cat on his desk, calls nephew Garko to ask for legal assistance and sends constable Frank Wolff over with a missive. The sleazy couple assumes the cop to be a deus ex machine, but he proves to be in on the racket. After sending Rey a secret plea for help (in Latin no less), our hopeful gets haughty and gives the sneering tough guy a good pounding. While Ralli fails to seduce Mateos with a shower, Rey puzzles out the message and sends some genuine although ineffectual police. Some may wonder what will happen to the unlovable couple besieged by this complicated plot; others may not. Castellari fills Cold Eyes with similarly absurd post-nouvelle vague editing, and I suspect this was a strictly commissioned affair for the veteran writer, producer and actor who can claim over 40 films to his credit. His failure as director really displays itself in the overdone, montage-heavy finale. Despite its lack of flesh and gore, Cold Eyes is shockingly exploitative. Wolff murders a policeman in flashback during a gratuitously cruel story diversion, only to illustrate his already obviously violent side. The violence throughout comes off as unnecessarily brutal, as well as distinctly European in flavor. None of the male characters treat the unimpressive prostitute much like a human, her unsurprised response perhaps suggesting they're correct to do so. Easily the best part of the movie is Ennio Morricone's amazing score, would fit better in a well-paced environment. If you want to see a decent film with Rey, who doesn't actually appear in shot with any of the main cast and probably only showed up for a day's worth of filming, check out the same year's French Connection.

'Cold Eyes Of Fear' starts off well enough. Against a backdrop of Swingin' 60s London a young playboy type "steals" a beautiful Italian girl from her elderly date and suggests she comes back to his place for some good times. "His place" being owned by his father, a rich and respected solicitor. Unfortunately a couple of criminals have plans of their own, one for money, the other for revenge, and the lovers end up prisoners in a tense siege situation. So far so good. The problem is that you keep waiting for the movie to jump up a notch and it never does. Most giallo I have watched either feature some tasty violence or sex, have some amazing plot twists, or something else really spectacular about them, but 'Cold Eyes Of Fear' just ambles along, and stays on course as a reasonably entertaining thriller, no more, no less. The cast are all okay, the girl (Karin Schubert) is beautiful, and the solicitor is played by the legendary Fernando Rey, best known for his work with Bunuel. The best thing by far about the movie is Morricone's outstanding jazz rock score. If you don't expect much this is pretty good entertainment, but if you want to see some amazing examples of this genre try 'Tenebre' (Argento), 'Don't Torture A Duckling' (Fulci) or 'Autopsy'.

Looking at the various artworks for this joint Spanish/Italian movie it is easy to assume that it is a traditional looking giallo, but in fact it is more of a tense home invasion thriller. The opening scene is pure giallo and there are certainly elements throughout the movie of that genre, but for the most part it is a suspenseful crime thriller, though towards the end one of the characters starts to get some scary hallucinations. The fact that it takes place at night also helps create some fear. Set in London I loved the street scenes, looked to my like it was probably done without permission as many passers-by can been seen looking at the action. Ennio Morricone provides an excellent soundtrack, very cool, and of all the cast Giovanna Ralli as a prostitute called Anna was my favourite character. However the movie is hardly a classic and the laughable "Cockney" accents of the two criminals, in particular of Quill (Julian Mateos), spoil any menace, I've docked it a couple of points for that. Could they not have employed somebody better to dub these two??

Overall, for fans of Italian crime and giallo movies it is definitely worth a watch, but maybe not a repeat.

As far as I know this is Enzo Castellari's only venture into the giallo genre, and I'd also heard it wasn't that good. That's not true, and it's barely even a giallo, so maybe I should check my sources or just watch the film. Chocks away!

Sporting incredible sideburns, Gianni Garko is a posh solicitor who quite wisely spends his free time with strippers and hookers who on this occasion takes home an Italian lady. When I say home, I mean his rich uncle's home in a rich part of London. You know, the kind that has a butler in it and a driveway. The Italian lady is playing hard to get even though she's a hooker, and the discovery of the dead butler is a bad enough dampner on the proceedings, so sex totally goes out the window when a gun-toting cockney emerges from the gloom.

He's a kind of 'Alright Guvnor, knees ap Maaver Bhraaan' cockney type but his motivations are not quite clear. Adding to Gianni's woes is his uncle (Fernando Rey), who is a judge and keeps calling to harass him about case files. Fernando sends a policeman over to the house with some files, and while he's trying to whisper that he's being held hostage, the policeman punches him square in the face. Uh-oh! Looks like there's a doings-a-transpiring!

Turns out the copper is the head bad guy which isn't much of a surprise seeing as he's played by Frank Wolff. Frank's motivations aren't quite clear but he does mention quite early on that he's wired Fernando Rey's office to blow up the moment he opens his door, so now the game is on for Gianni to free himself and the hooker, get rid of Frank and his partner, and save Fernando in the nick of time. Either that or he can just have a lot of punch ups while the hooker plays mind games with the two of them.

As this is one of those films that could almost be a stage play in terms of limited set and characters, Enzo's usual hyperactivity makes sure that things don't get boring, so he throws in loads of jarring editing techniques, unusual camera angles (like filming Gianni through the bottom of a jug of icy water he's having his head forced into, or through those finger holes you used to get on telephones), loads of twists (even the cockney becomes unsure of Frank's motives), and an overly violent ending just to cap things off.

Although Fernando Rey shouts down the phone a lot and doesn't do much else, Frank and Gianni do well in their roles, with Frank constantly mocking Gianni's Eton and 'playing rugger', with Gianni alternating between snivelling wimp and stiff upper lip radge mentalness.

I've never seen an Enzo film I didn't like, so you might want to knock the praise in this review down a bit. Ennio Morricone's freeform jazz soundtrack is a winner too.

'Cold Eyes of Fear' is a 1971 stylish giallo thriller directed by Enzo G. Castellari with a tense claustrophobic atmosphere, decent visual flair and an interesting set up with a few twists and turns thrown into the mix. But despite these elements the movie is a rather tepid affair with a sluggish pace and lacking in thrills. To put it mildly it's boring.

The plot begins with Peter Bedell (Gianni Garko) who picks up Anna (Giovanna Ralli) from a club and takes her back to his uncle's house. They soon discover they are not alone when Ex-Convict Arthur Welt (Frank Wolff) and his henchman Quill (Julian Mateos) are there waiting for them and takes them hostage to extract revenge on Peter's uncle Judge Bedell (Fernando Rey) for wrongfully sending one of them to jail.

What could have been a cool home invasion thriller soon becomes rather tedious with too much talking and exposition, and not enough excitement. Even when the action ramps up towards the end, with the plot twists and action, it's merely too little to late and despite some strong performances from the cast and stylish production, the movie falls flat with the director feeling confined by the limitations of the material as the concept wasn't half bad, it just could have done with better writing.

Overall 'Cold Eyes of Fear' is a rather lacklustre giallo and there's far better examples of the genre out there to enjoy. Skip this one.