The girl who knew too much (“La ragazza che sapeva troppo”)

Italy, 1963

Director: Mario Bava

Script: Mario Bava, Ennio de Concini, Enzo Corbucci, Eliana De Sabata, Mino Guerrini

Cast: John Saxon (Dr. Marcello Bassi), Leticia Román (Nora), Valentina Cortese (Laura Craven-Torrani), Titti Tomaino (Inspector)

Music: Roberto Nicolosi

Story

The young American Nora Davis, an assiduous reader of detective novels, arrives in Rome to spend her vacations. She goes to the apartment of her hostess, the elderly Ethel, a friend of her family. The old woman suffers from ailments, and the handsome doctor Marcello takes care of her. Soon a mutual attraction will be born between the doctor and the newcomer.

That same night, Ethel suffers a stroke and dies. Nora tries to call Marcello, but when the phone doesn’t work, she goes out to look for him at the hospital where she works. On the way, passing by the steps of Piazza Spagna, someone steals her purse. Next, Nora sees a young woman who has just been stabbed. The tourist hides and sees the silhouette of the murderer appear, who takes the body away. Then Nora loses consciousness. Someone finds her like this at dawn and tries to revive her by giving her some alcohol. But when a guard approaches, the man who was trying to help Nora retreats. The guard believes that Nora is drunk (because of the smell of alcohol) and that his story of a woman being stabbed is nothing more than fantasy and hallucination. There are no traces of blood or any dead woman there. At the hospital, they also think that everything must have been a figment of their imagination.

At Ethel’s funeral, Nora meets Laura Craven-Torrani, who lives right across from Piazza Spagna. As the tourist has lost her hostess, Laura offers her hospitality. So, the North American stays there, where she receives the frequent visits of Marcello, who is willing to show her the city.

Nora remains convinced that she witnessed a real murder. She soon learns that it was there that she was killed ten years earlier, under circumstances identical to those she saw, Laura’s sister. Marcello and another doctor think that Nora may have had a “metapsychic” experience, seeing, in an altered state of consciousness, something that really happened there but much earlier (i.e. she saw an event at the place where it happened but with a temporary dislocation). That crime, occurred in the context of a series of murders that shook Rome ten years ago. The victims were always young women, and the crimes were committed in alphabetical order of last names. The first victim’s surname began with A, the second with B, the third with C (Craven, Laura’s sister)… And while Nora is thinking about it, she receives a mysterious anonymous phone call, reminding her that her own surname is “Davis”, that is, it begins with D… So, the young woman fears that she might be next.

She and Marcello try to investigate, and they come into contact with a former reporter named Landini. He explains to them that ten years ago he and his psychiatrist friend Torrani (Laura’s husband) had a suspect in the crime wave convicted, an unbalanced bum who was sent to a criminal asylum. But now Landini regrets this, considering that the man who helped convict was only a scapegoat. He says he is willing to find out the truth. And he believes that what Nora witnessed on the steps was no hallucination?

Commentary

This feature film is generally considered to be the first official giallo, the film that would lay the narrative and stylistic foundations for the Italian thrillers that would follow. The title is a clear allusion to Hitchcock’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956). In fact, this British director and master of suspense can be considered one of Mario Bava’s main influences. However, Bava wanted to call his film “Incubus” (“Nightmare”), and “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” was the name imposed by production, since it was considered more commercial when establishing the connection with the famous Hitchcock.

In fact, the concept of giallo is explicitly mentioned (by a voice-over narrator), since the main character is a fan of “gialli” (i.e., detective and crime) novels. In Italian “Giallo” means “yellow”, and in this context it refers to the poor quality (yellowish) paper on which those novels used to be printed.

In the narrative there is a curious circular structure, related to smoking, because in the first scene we see Nora’s seatmate on the plane offering her a cigarette and giving her a pack of cigarettes. Upon landing in Rome, this individual is arrested at the airport for drug trafficking. The spectator thinks that all this will have something to do with the development of the plot but it is not so. However, in the final scene the subject of smoking reappears so that that scene of the film’s opening becomes sentimental (although all this only brings some comic relief, and is not relevant to the story itself).

In the script, besides Ennio De Concini (scriptwriter of the first seasons of “La Piovra”) and the director himself, Sergio Corbucci (one of the greatest exponents of the Italo-Western, along with his namesake Leone) participated, Mino Guerrini (who in 1966 would direct the remarkable “The third eye”) and Franco Prosperi (director in 1982 of “Gunan King of the Barbarians” and in 1983 of “The Throne of Fire”, two sword and candle films that emerged from the success of “Conan the Barbarian”).

The actress who plays the main character, Leticia Román, is not Spanish as you might think from her name, but Italian (her name is actually Letizia Novarese).

The American John Saxon (who was also of Italian origin, real name Carmine Orrico) plays Marcello. This actor developed a great part of his career in the country of his ancestors, participating among many other films in “Tenebre” (Dario Argento, 1982), in the film about the Mafia “Baciamo le mani” (Vittorio Schiraldi, 1973), and in several of Umberto Lenzi’s polizzieschi. He is also one of the main actors in “Operation Dragon” (Robert Clouse, 1973), starring Bruce Lee.

The soundtrack, by Roberto Nicolosi in the Italian version and Les Baxter in the English version, includes a song by the well-known Adriano Celentano.

The English version of the film (or rather the American one), is called “Evil eye” and has an alternative montage that has cut scenes and added others, giving a more comical approach to the film.

Get All the colors of murder: Guide to giallo cinema HERE!