Eyeball (O.V. Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro)
Italy, 1975
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Script: Umberto Lenzi, Félix Tusell
Cast: Martine Brochard (Paulette), John Rochardson (Mark), Ines Pellegrini (Naiba), Andrés Mejuto (Inspector Tudela), Mirta Miller (Lisa), Daniele Vargas (Robby Alvarado), George Rigaud (Reverend Bronson), Silvia Solar (Gail), Raf Baldassarre (Martínez), José María Blanco (Inspector Lara), Verónica Miriel (Jenny)
Music: Bruno Nicolai
Giallo/Slasher
Story
A group of North American tourists visit Barcelona. Among them are young Peggy, a lesbian couple (photographer Lisa and her model Naiba), teenager Jenny with her grandfather who is always smoking cigars, Ronnie Alvarado (of Spanish origin, and a veteran of the civil war) with his wife Gayle, the priest Bronson, and Paulette, who in the United States works in an advertising agency. Guide Martínez is a joker who enjoys scaring the women in the group with rubber spiders, mice, and so on.
While the tourists are walking along the Ramblas, a girl, daughter of a local florist, is stabbed in the vicinity. The girl has one of her eyes removed.
Veteran inspector Tudela and his assistant Lara begin their investigations. Soon another girl is murdered in identical circumstances at an amusement park; and this time the victim is a member of the tour. Next to the body they find one of Martínez’ rubber spiders, so he becomes a suspect. The police also do not rule out that the killer is one of the tourists.
By chance, Paulette is in Barcelona with Marc, the head of her advertising agency. There was a romance between the two in the past. They would like to restart the relationship, but he is still married to Alma, a woman with serious mental imbalances, who is supposedly in a clinic. Marc joins the group. Soon the inspectors begin to suspect him too, as they discover that there is something in his murky past that he is trying to hide.
Marc, for his part, verifies that Alma is not in the clinic where he supposed her… It seems that she is there in Barcelona. And remembering a very similar crime that happened in her city in the USA, near her home, he begins to think that she might be the murderer…
Commentary
Lenzi’s Giallo-slasher with zoomorphic title as it was in those years. In its approach it reminds us of Agatha Christie’s “Ten Little Indians”, although the crimes take place mostly in different places and open spaces (not in a single mansion as is the case in the famous novel). The Italian-Spanish co-production was shot in Barcelona and Sitges.
The acting cast includes Ines Pellegrini as Naiba. This actress, of Eritrean origin, participated in “The Thousand and One Nights” (1974) and “Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom” (both by Pier Paolo Pasolini). The Argentinean Mirta Miller, who in Spain participated in several sexy commedies of the post-Franco period, embodies here the photographer Lisa. Also Argentinean was George Rigaud, who here acts as the Reverend Bronson. Rigaud participated in many Spanish and Italian products of the time.
The murder in the amusement park is reminiscent of a very similar situation in the giallo “Naked girl murdered in the park” (Alfonso Brescia, 1972), which is also set in Spain.
The murderer (or murderess), this time is not wearing black leather gloves, but red rubber ones. He or she also wears a red raincoat that hides the entire body, including the face. For this reason, when the police questioned a witness who witnessed the running away of the criminal, she said that (since the figure was also very agile) it looked like “a big red cat”. The “glass labyrinth” has to do with the extracted eyes, and will make sense in the conclusion of the film. (The translation of the original Italian title is “Red cats in a glass labyrinth”).
Good suspense, turns of the script and shocking scenes (which excuse some incoherence). Worthy of note is also the soundtrack by Bruno Nicolai, a regular collaborator of Ennio Morricone.
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