Who Saw Her Die? (1972)

To my shame, I've yet to see Nicholas Roeg's celebrated 1973 classic Don't Look Now, which by all accounts was heavily influenced, both thematically and stylistically, by this lesser giallo by Aldo Lado (The Night Train Murders, Short Night of the Glass Dolls). I can only hope that Roeg's film doesn't prove equally as disappointing...Boasting decent cinematography, a brutal veiled killer who thinks nothing of killing kids, and a haunting Ennio Morricone score, Lado's film possesses an undeniably unsettling atmosphere, but still manages to be a frustratingly weak affair overall, a dreary, unmemorable murder mystery so baffling that it really isn't worth the effort trying to follow.After several relatively tame murders that slowly whittle down the list of suspects, and scene upon scene of hippy-haired, mustachioed artist Franco (George Lazenby) running around Venice following a trail of clues, we finally find out who the killer is and what their silly motive is. Be prepared to be seriously under-whelmed and quite possibly still very confused.

Released a year before Roeg's great Venetian mystery drama "Don't Look Now", this - thanks to the fine location work - stylish and good-looking giallo is otherwise vastly inferior to its counterpart despite their narrative similarities.The attempts at suspense and thrills are ridiculous, the character motivation is idiotic beyond belief, the suspects are just a bunch of comic freaks, Morricone's score becomes grating after a while and the denouement is obvious from the get-go.Though polished and featuring a comparatively prominent cast - with Lazenby looking particularly unhappy -, this crude and tasteless genre offering is even worse than some less known gialli.2 out of 10 unveiled killers

Gripping giallo with slightly more disturbing themes than we're used to. Mainly because little girls are being killed here, as well as there seem to be decadent sex-sessions going on amongst a group of selected adults. Apart from the opening scene, this movie takes place in Venice, but doesn't exactly extol this romantic city. Director Aldo Lado prefers to portray a city in decay, showing us several rundown buildings where some of the chase scenes take place and a sleazy cinema-theatre as well as drawing out some perverted characters. The sometimes sloppy editing and grainy cinematography help in giving this movie a raw feeling. Ennio Morricone's score is pretty haunting. The main theme has a children's choir singing creepy chantings. Though that theme is over-used more than a bit too much, it never misses its effect. There was just one disappointment, though: this was the third time in a giallo-row that I guessed, very early on in the movie, who the killer was... Oh well, it's still a decent and disturbing giallo. Certainly worth it if you're a fan of the genre.

For those of you wondering whether George Lazenby ever made another picture, after incarnating the most under-appreciated Bond ever in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"...well, here he is, three years later, in the Italian giallo "Who Saw Her Die?" In this one, he plays a sculptor named Franco who is living in Venice. When his cute little red-haired daughter is murdered and found floating in a canal, Franco naturally embarks on a quest to find the demented child killer. Lazenby, it must be said here, is almost unrecognizable from three years before. He sports a sleazy handlebar moustache in this film and looks decidedly thinner, almost gaunt, as if he'd been afflicted with a wasting disease in the interim. And the film itself? Well, it's something of a mixed bag. Yes, it does feature stylish direction by Aldo Lado, as well as a pretty freaky score by master composer Ennio Morricone, consisting largely of echoey chanting. We are also given plentiful scenery of Venice, which looks both beautiful and seedy here, an intriguing story to set our mental teeth into, AND Adolfo Celi, always a welcome presence (and another Bond alumnus, from "Thunderball"), here playing a mysterious art dealer. On the down side, I must confess that I was at a loss to understand what the hell was going on throughout most of the picture; what explanations do come toward the end are either half heard from distant rooms or grunted out during fisticuffs. Dubbing doesn't help matters (subtitles would have been a nice option), and the film is never particularly scary or suspenseful. I'll probably need to sit through this one again to get a better handle. Still, "Who Saw Her Die?" remains an interesting, nice-to-look-at giallo, nicely captured here in widescreen on yet another fine DVD from Anchor Bay.