The Fifth Cord

The Fifth Cord (Giornata Nera Per L'ariete) (1971)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Luigi Bazzoni

Starring: Franco Nero, Silvia Monti, Wolfgang Preiss, Ira Von Furstenberg, Edmund Purdom

From: Several Italian companies

The first-but not the last-giallo I plan on seeing this season.

It is a genre effort I've known of for awhile and as it not only stars a familiar face in Franco Nero but is on Shudder, it seemed like a swell idea to check out an early giallo... and it was.

Nero plays a newspaper reporter (not a rare job in this genre) who has several people connected to him get murdered-not in inventive bloody ways but still-and either he's the killer or someone is setting him up as the prime suspect. As expected, he investigates as the deaths continue, there are red herrings, etc. Nero's character-the absurdly named Andrea Blid-is an alcoholic who has multiple ruined relationships w/ women, slaps around his lover, and will never be confused with a cuddly teddy bear. That does not mean he isn't a compelling protagonist.

The main reasons to check this out: the general story and its surprising reveal... an excellent Morricone score where he plays his organ-er, I mean plays music on the organ-it having lovely cinematography from three time Oscar winner Vittorio Storaro, and several sensational suspense scenes. It's a mystery movie so I don't want to reveal too much else; however, I'd be a fool to not bring up an interesting gimmick: the killer is heard w/ a distorted voice either recording his thoughts on tape or via taunting phone calls. The taunting is menacing but it also allows the viewer to learn more about the perpetrator. One last thing: those that love the colorful (sometimes literally) titles of the giallo world... this is also known as Black Day of the Ram. With any luck, the other genre efforts I watch in the next month plus will have even more outre titles.