La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo(The Girl Who Knew Too Much)
(1963) Italian
This movie had many distinctions about it, some good, some bad. Okay, mostly bad. Any movie that almost directly copies the title of a successful American movie plus has a story that even the director thinks sucks, is not going to be a great movie. It is the pioneer of the giallo genre. That's just Italian for mystery, whodunit, gee this movie sucks (kidding). It was the last movie Bava shot in black and white. It's one of the few where it is only dubbed in English in subtitles. And it has only one title (Ah damn I got tricked by that one - found another poster calling this movie The Evil Eye and claims it to be 'supernatural'. Ummm, no.). But the title... okay in 1934 Alfred Hitchcock released his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, featuring a freshly escaped from Nazi Germany Peter Lorre. Peter couldn't speak English yet, and so learned his lines phonetically. Then in 1956 came our Que Sera Sera version with James Stewart and Doris Day. Because Hitchcock owned parts of the stories of the novel (How does that work?), although both movies have this title, they are two very different movies. Huh. And so is this one... not good, different.
It does have John Saxon though, one of my favorite B movie actors looking very handsome but I swear he wasn't speaking Italian - he looked like he was just mouthing his lines. My apologies go to Carmine Orrico, as he was born - an Italian American. While it doesn't specifically say he speaks Italian, he was in quite a few Italian films so... mea culpa.
Being a nosy American loving mystery novels I guess sets her up as someone who would look through someone else's stuff, as she is sifting through this woman's closet. She finds some newspaper articles about a serial killer, the 'Alphabet Killer' because he has killed people with names starting from A-C. Three people? This is a serial killer? I mean the last death was ten years ago... sigh. No wonder Bava said he tried to concentrate on the 'technical' aspect of the movie. The last victim, conveniently, was the sister of the woman Nora is staying with. Nora of course NOW gets a call saying 'D is for death' meaning that she's next in line (not because of Nora silly - because her last name is DUH, uh, I mean Davis).
So Nora, being... well, I already said that, next finds things in her nosy fiddling with other people's stuff evidence that makes her think Landini is the killer. Until they find him dead. Whoops. So Laura (The one who owns the place Nora's staying at remember? You don't? Can't blame you, this plot is really hard to pay attention to...) comes back and Nora and the doc want to go to America together (awww). Then Nora reads the paper (NO, NOT THE PAPER!) and sees that a woman's body has been found, the one she saw the night she was mugged - the one they didn't believe her about. She identifies her in the morgue (Uh, don't they save that for relatives?) and restates that she saw her being killed.
That night (always at night these things end) a man is in the house - as he approaches her, he collapses, a knife in his back. It's the man who was taking the knife out of the body when... ah, you know. She is surprised to see Laura, a mad, insane, out of her head, nasty Laura who is the ACTUAL killer (huh, a woman in the 60's, whaddya know) because she was scheming to get her sister's money (of course) and because Nora loves to look at other people's stuff, she was forced to kill her husband (oh, that's who that guy was). Laura starts to go after nosy Nora but her still-alive husband manages to shoot her (he had a gun when she had a knife? DUH). The husband, upon closer inspection (eww) was actually trying to dump the body of the girl she saw because he knew his wife had done the deed. DUH DUH DUH. So everybody's happy (except the dead people) and Nora gets her doctor and they go on to America to, I guess, get nosy with people's stuff there.
This movie had many distinctions about it, some good, some bad. Okay, mostly bad. Any movie that almost directly copies the title of a successful American movie plus has a story that even the director thinks sucks, is not going to be a great movie. It is the pioneer of the giallo genre. That's just Italian for mystery, whodunit, gee this movie sucks (kidding). It was the last movie Bava shot in black and white. It's one of the few where it is only dubbed in English in subtitles. And it has only one title (Ah damn I got tricked by that one - found another poster calling this movie The Evil Eye and claims it to be 'supernatural'. Ummm, no.). But the title... okay in 1934 Alfred Hitchcock released his first version of The Man Who Knew Too Much, featuring a freshly escaped from Nazi Germany Peter Lorre. Peter couldn't speak English yet, and so learned his lines phonetically. Then in 1956 came our Que Sera Sera version with James Stewart and Doris Day. Because Hitchcock owned parts of the stories of the novel (How does that work?), although both movies have this title, they are two very different movies. Huh. And so is this one... not good, different.
It does have John Saxon though, one of my favorite B movie actors looking very handsome but I swear he wasn't speaking Italian - he looked like he was just mouthing his lines. My apologies go to Carmine Orrico, as he was born - an Italian American. While it doesn't specifically say he speaks Italian, he was in quite a few Italian films so... mea culpa.  |
| What. The. Hell. |
So we have our basic silly mystery story: An American named Nora travelling to Rome who happens to love mystery novels is staying with her aunt who is very ill and, conveniently, dies the first night she's there. Trying to make her way to a hospital as the phones are out, she is mugged and knocked unconscious. When she wakes she thinks she sees a guy pull a knife out of a dead woman's back. In the hospital the police question her but of course doesn't believe her since no body was found, not even the handsome doctor who took care of her aunt, Dr. Bassi (John Saxon). Later at her aunt's funeral she meets a woman, Laura, who was a close friend of hers who lets her live at her house while she's on vacation.
Being a nosy American loving mystery novels I guess sets her up as someone who would look through someone else's stuff, as she is sifting through this woman's closet. She finds some newspaper articles about a serial killer, the 'Alphabet Killer' because he has killed people with names starting from A-C. Three people? This is a serial killer? I mean the last death was ten years ago... sigh. No wonder Bava said he tried to concentrate on the 'technical' aspect of the movie. The last victim, conveniently, was the sister of the woman Nora is staying with. Nora of course NOW gets a call saying 'D is for death' meaning that she's next in line (not because of Nora silly - because her last name is DUH, uh, I mean Davis).
So Nora, about to die does the logical thing: She kills time and movie minutes by looking around Rome with the handsome doctor and they get romantically involved. Duh. After he brings her back, she gets a call telling her to go to a certain address and being American, stupid and part of this movie, she goes. She discovers a tape recording warning her to leave Rome. That would buy my ticket right there. But no, she's got a doctor on her arm now, and possibly on the hook so she stays and snoops some more. Two people just don't make a really good Scooby team. They find out the address is leased by a Landini, who is supposed to bean investigative reporter. He had been working on the Alphabet Murders (the music to this could go Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh...) and when he finds they've been looking for him, he finds them first and convinces them to help him (Duh, Duh, Duh, Duh...).
So Nora, being... well, I already said that, next finds things in her nosy fiddling with other people's stuff evidence that makes her think Landini is the killer. Until they find him dead. Whoops. So Laura (The one who owns the place Nora's staying at remember? You don't? Can't blame you, this plot is really hard to pay attention to...) comes back and Nora and the doc want to go to America together (awww). Then Nora reads the paper (NO, NOT THE PAPER!) and sees that a woman's body has been found, the one she saw the night she was mugged - the one they didn't believe her about. She identifies her in the morgue (Uh, don't they save that for relatives?) and restates that she saw her being killed.
That night (always at night these things end) a man is in the house - as he approaches her, he collapses, a knife in his back. It's the man who was taking the knife out of the body when... ah, you know. She is surprised to see Laura, a mad, insane, out of her head, nasty Laura who is the ACTUAL killer (huh, a woman in the 60's, whaddya know) because she was scheming to get her sister's money (of course) and because Nora loves to look at other people's stuff, she was forced to kill her husband (oh, that's who that guy was). Laura starts to go after nosy Nora but her still-alive husband manages to shoot her (he had a gun when she had a knife? DUH). The husband, upon closer inspection (eww) was actually trying to dump the body of the girl she saw because he knew his wife had done the deed. DUH DUH DUH. So everybody's happy (except the dead people) and Nora gets her doctor and they go on to America to, I guess, get nosy with people's stuff there.
Woof, I don't know how they got Bava to do this, but I will say his directing was still excellent, despite the, uh, material he had to work with. Still gotta like that dude...
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