Jour maléfique

Excellent Cinematography & Music. Story is lacking, maybe in the English Translation.

This is the same director and cinematographer who made Footprints on the Moon, excellent movie.

This movie also has great cinematography and the directing/editing is a fine job. Music is good as well. The acting is good. But the story is lacking. Maybe the story is lost in the English translation. Best suspense is when the killer was going after the kid. It's a good thing the kid didn't get killed, that would have been bad, and sick! Maybe in the original Italian, the story holds up better. And maybe some graphic scenes were cut out for the English release. If so, then this is a great film, and great production. But as it stands I can only give it a C, or B -, 6 stars. Worth checking out for the camera work.

I like giallo as a genre but I must admit that I found 'The Fifth Cord' to be very difficult to stay interested in. Half-way through I began to get bored, and by the end when the identity of the killer was revealed and their motive explained, all I could do was shrug and rewind. I can appreciate Franco Nero as much as the next guy, but even his utter coolness can't keep this one from a one way ticket to snoozeville. Nero plays an alcoholic journalist attempting to solve a series of odd murders in which he himself is a suspect. The whole movie has a second-hand Argento feel to it, but it just meanders along in a dull and uninteresting fashion. I would only recommend this to super giallo buffs who must see every movie of this kind ever made. The rest of you shouldn't bother, as it is a disappointing example of the genre, and really has nothing but Nero going for it. Too bad.

The Fifth Cord is a giallo from director Luigi Bazzoni, who was also responsible for another entry in the genre, the excellent Footprints on the Moon. This film is a lot more conventional than Footprints. In it, an alcoholic journalist becomes entangled in a series of murders that seem to be connected somehow. This plot-line is pretty unremarkable and typical. But three things make this one stand out. Firstly it has the charismatic Franco Nero in the central role, secondly it's got another impressive Ennio Morricone soundtrack and thirdly, and most importantly, it has exquisite photography from the great Vittorio Storaro who previously shot The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and later did Apocalypse Now. The cinematography really is fantastic here. Geometric spaces are shot with consummate skill and every frame seems to have been considered in detail. Aesthetically, The Fifth Cord is an unarguable triumph.

It's not particularly violent for a giallo. The murders are not very graphic at all. Although it does have some impressive suspenseful moments such as the sequence where a disabled woman - played by the always interesting Rossella Falk – is terrorised in the dark by an unseen assailant. Otherwise it does have the usual combination of crazy components that are typical to the genre, such as sex parties, astrology and blackmail. Although I guess the story holds together more solidly than most other gialli. Bazzoni hasn't made a classic of the genre to be fair but he has directed a very stylish one. It comes from the slightly more restrained side of the genre but it should definitely interest seasoned fans of this type of thing.

Any fan of 1970s Italian Giallo films has seen enough of them to know what to look for, but, of course, everyone sees something different in art. We all know about The Cat o Nine Tails (cool as hell) and Deep Red (bloody amazing), but some lesser-known Gialli have been available for re-discovery courtesy of Blue Underground and Shreikshow labels.

One of the better ones has to be The Fifth Cord starring Franco Nero. For me, the number one thing in these films is not plot points but ATMOSPHERE. This film not only has the great Franco Nero as its protagonist, but is brilliantly shot by Vittorio Storaro. Also, the director knows what to show most of the time, and when and how to show it. The finale is set in one of those funky 1960s European open concept homes with the stairwell to the second floor in the middle of the living room and a huge fireplace fit for Cortina! The kind of films we don't see any more, unfortunately. Without these DVD releases, we'd be stuck with a lot of modern would-be thrillers involving cell-phones and teeny-boppers.

"The Fifth Cord" (1971) is a rock-solid if meaninglessly titled giallo ("The Fifth Finger" might have made more sense) that, despite the low-cc count bloodwise, should manage to satisfy most viewers. In it, Franco Nero plays a very handsome but hard-drinking reporter (so hard-drinking that he swills J&B from the bottle while driving!) who investigates after a serial killer begins to slay his quickly diminishing circle of friends. Though fans of these gialli should recognize any number of Euro stars in this film, the real stars of the show, in this case, are surely behind the camera. Luigi Bazzoni's direction is stylish and fluid as can be, maestro Ennio Morricone's score is by turns atmospheric and unsettling, and, most importantly, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro's lensing here is truly a work of art. Indeed, this is one of the best-looking gialli that I have ever seen. As far as the plot goes, yes, it does hold together, the murderer does not appear out of far left field at the end, and there are several quite suspenseful sequences. I especially appreciated two near the end, with the killer stalking a young boy, and with Nero chasing and duking it out with the crazed wacko in a deserted building. Despite the presence of seemingly unavoidable red herrings, I was able to look back at this film's story afterward and realize that it did indeed cohere logically. And how nice to see American actress Pamela Tiffin, after her '60s ingenue roles, playing such a sultry sexpot here. Meow! Actually, the only thing that bothered me about "The Fifth Cord" was its time frame. The picture seems to transpire over the course of a mere week or two, and yet by the stated dates of the homicides at the film's end, one realizes that over 4 1/2 months have elapsed! I guess time truly does fly when the viewer is having fun....