Director: Alberto DeMartino
Year: 1971
Country: Italy/USA
Alternate Titles: L'uomo dagli occhi di ghiaccio
Genre: Giallo
Plot:
After the death of a senator, a reporter helps to break a case that sends a suspect to Death Row, only to get hints that the man is innocent and the suspect remains at large, forcing him to try searching for the actual culprit in the crimes with help from his underground friends before that happens.
Review:
Overall, this was a massively underwhelming and generally problematic giallo. Among the best aspects here is the fine setup that provides a rather intriguing mystery at the core of the film. The initial murder and the trial bring about the kind of fine starting point to look into the incident after the discovery of the stripper eyewitness who starts to help clue him in on the fact that the trial might’ve been a sham, and the real killer is still at large. There’s some fun to be had with the concurrent series of meetings that come about involving the figures looking to help the case. These are brought together rather well in the final half as the build-up before then is made quite a bit more intensive, as the series of attempts on the life of the reporter and the stripper in his care makes for a fine series of encounters and chases that inject some action into things. These manage to provide some enjoyable factors here.
There are a series of issues with this one holding it back. The main issue with this one is the fact that there’s just not a whole lot of anything interesting happening throughout here to keep the excitement level going. The central story here invites plenty of action with the race to stop the execution from happening as he gets help from a series of underground figures trying to help him out on his quest to save him, yet here, nothing happens. The endless meetings and discussions he has with them trying to make sense of how he got framed for the murder and what the various clues mean, which sends him off to meet someone else and it never once comes off like there’s any kind of urgency or hurry, as the body count is so dangerously low due to there not being any traditional stalking scenes.
That leads into the film’s other big factor, where it’s just way too unconcerned with trying to solve the identity of the killer and trying to save the condemned man from the executioner’s chair. This is a rather bizarre choice where the group seems to be quite well aware that there’s a real killer out there, as the bombshell about the condemned man being the wrong victim is already out, so it should be about looking into who actually did it that should be the way this one operates. Rather, the killer gets revealed as a last-second mark that comes about so quickly it’s hard to register who actually did it or what the plan actually was about, causing this one to have a few major drawbacks throughout.
Overview: */5
A disappointing giallo without much going for it, this one has some big problems that are enough to hold it back, with only a few positive points on display to counteract them. Those with an interest in this era of genre fare or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there should heed massive caution.
This review is part of our ongoing series of reviews for Italian Horror Month, every November on the site:
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