Well Deserved Praise

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Blistering performances.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Aldo Lado is surely one of the most under-rated Italian directors of the 70's. He seems to be relatively forgotten, while several lesser contemporaries get a lot more attention. But whatever the case, Lado was responsible for three excellent horror/thrillers in the mid-70's. There was the nasty revenge thriller Night Train Murders and a couple of gialli - the Prague-set Short Night of the Glass Dolls and the Venice-set Who Saw Her Die? All films were very distinct from one and other and all had considerable style to burn.Who Saw Her Die? is the one which follows the classic style formula of the giallo most closely. In it a serial killer is on the prowl in Venice. Like Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now, this one used the crumbling streets of that famous ancient city to great creepy effect. It begins, however, in the French Alps with a nicely atmospheric prologue in which a young child is killed by a black-veiled killer in the snowy expanses. This villain is a very good one and is presented throughout the movie in a very sinister manner indeed, with close-up shots of their shoes as they menacingly advance toward their victims and shots of their obscured veiled face. Additionally this character is accompanied by an absolutely rivetingly creepy Ennio Morricone theme which is a controlled cacophony of a children's choir over a steady beat. It's one of his most memorable individual bits of music and that's saying a lot considering the sheer volume and quality of Il Maestro's output. The cast is solid with George Lazenby appearing in his first starring role following his solitary turn as James Bond in the under-valued On Her Majesty's Secret Service; while he is ably supported by genre regular's such as Anita Strindberg (The Case of the Scorpion's Tail) and Adolfo Celi (Danger: Diabolik).As far as I am concerned, this is an excellent giallo by one of the most reliable Italian directors from the period. It works well as a pretty intriguing mystery, while it delivers the requisite vicarious thrills too. And most importantly it presents these things with a healthy slice of style and verve. Well worth seeing…!

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.

Superior to his directorial feature, Short Night of the Glass Dolls, Aldo Lado delivers a one-two punch with this movie. Before getting to the plot points, I must Gush over Ennio Morricone's score. It is so haunting and wonderful that I rank it up there with the top horror scores like The Omen, The Exorcist, and Halloween(perhaps not a great score musically speaking, but potently effective). If you haven't time to watch the film yet, look up the trailer and you can hear bits of the main theme. Excellent.We find old George Lazenby hanging up his tuxedo from playing 007 and donning a shaggy hair-do and a 70's porn mustache. And, though physically fit, when shirtless, his body seems disproportioned and ugly. Someone else dubs his voice, which is moronic. A child killer is on the loose in Venice, often targeting little red-haired girls and beating their little brains out. Lazenby's daughter is stalked by a woman wearing funeral attire complete with black veil. Gloved hands? Check. Extended camera shots of killer's black shoes reverbing on cobblestone? Check. Point of view shots? Check. So, the little ginger gets nabbed and it is heartbreaking to see her floating facedown in the canal, bobbing slightly next to a boat. Lazenby, tortured by the death of his only child and blaming himself, finds comfort with this estranged wife as they try to work together to piece his daughter Roberta's murder with other similar murders in recent years.There aren't many bloody scenes, but we do get a very typical giallo kill where a man is stabbed with large shears next to his budgie aviary and as his body slumps, bloody, to the ground, the killer opens the cage door and the room fills with parakeets. Some of them even land on the body and hop around. Birds are a reoccurring visual theme in Lado's gialli. Very effective.Again, the score. God, it's great. If you haven't seen Aldo Lado's work before, check out Short Night of the Glass Dolls first, then this film. Even if you aren't a big horror or giallo fan, you will be drawn in. I feel his work rivals Argento in many ways.

All in all, "Who Saw Her Die?" is a very well-done giallo, but those of us who have seen more than a few of these kind of films can pretty much see the ending from five miles away. I don't want to rag on it too much; the soundtrack is fairly decent, the acting is okay, the story makes sense and the script is well-penned. It just fails to shock us or to make us think.A psychopath randomly offs a young, red-haired girl in the 60's. Fast forward to the 70's, it happens again. The murders are tied together. The neglecting, mournful father tries to find the killer and is successful in the end. Not much else really happens. It turns out to be a typical Hitchcockesque twist that will have you nodding your head, saying to yourself 'gee I didn't see that coming...' I'd recommend at least a dozen giallos before this one. Check out "The House With Laughing Windows" for a magnificent example of the genre.4 out of 10, kids.