Giallo is an Italian exploitation murder mystery genre with elements of other genres. Thanks, Wikipedia.
It is now the best title of anything I have covered thus far. I was worried that the cane would be metaphorical, but it is not.
I'm glad I saw the cane title instead of these alternate titles:
Dance Steps on the Edge of a Razor
The Tormentor
Maniac at Large
The Night of the Rolling Heads
Devil Blade.
Otherwise, I might have missed it!
It starts with POV shot through a coin-operated telescope across an italian town
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| He was an actor before Game of Thrones |
Two men fight over the binoculars. They spot a woman bending over with a view up her skirt.
Definitely an exploitation movie.
A woman takes some photographs of tourists. One of them informs us that her name is Kitty. Of course it is. He tells Kitty that they have to find Alberto to catch a plane.
Kitty looks through the telescope to find Alberto's balcony and sees a man stabbing a naked woman through a window.
Hitchcock totally ripped off this movie!
Also, who commits murder with the window blinds open?
More importantly, that's an extremely creepy way to find Alberto.
Most importantly, it took a whole four minutes and fourteen seconds for this exploitation movie to get to the first naked woman.
Right before the man turns around, the telescope expires. Of course it does. Kitty puts another coin in and the man has disappeared. She sees the house number is 57.
Kitty tells an officer that a woman was murdered. The officer says he can't do anything because he is a fireman. Social commentary?
Alberto pulls up to a curb. Kitty tells him that she saw a women being murdered. Alberto mansplains
Alberto: Are you really sure, honey?
Alberto: Yeah, but, are you sure?
So, after seeing the woman being murdered, Kitty asks an officer in the vicinity, who tells her to go to the police. Instead of going to the police there, she goes home, which requires driving on the highway, and then drives back. Why?
Kitty talks to the inspector. The inspector condescendingly asks her whether the woman was strangled or knifed.
Kitty and Alberto drop off some photographs of a decapitated mannequinn to a director. okay.
Cut to the director and a blonde woman having sex.
It took this exploitation movie over nine minutes to get to a sex scene.
The man has to give up because he is too stressed about the show.
This is a medical condition known as directional dysfunction
The phone rings.The woman picks up. It's Kitty. Kitty asks Lydia (the blonde woman) if she has heard about the murder. Lydia says she has heard about another one, but not this one.
Lydia runs a newspaper. Kitty tells her the story so she can print it.
At some point in the future (this movie doesn't indicate passage of time well), Kitty looks through the newspaper for the murder story and finds nothing. If this movie doesn't explain this by the end, I'll be angry.
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| Note the J&B whiskey bottle |
The doorbell rings. The inspector steps inside, and then asks if he can go inside. Well...
On the terrace, a hilarious situation doesn't play out. The murder inspectors walks in on Alberto stabbing a dummy. I honestly don't know how the movie failed to make this funny.
The inspector confirms that they did indeed find the corpse of a women. Kitty says that the killer was dressed in black. Of course he was.
She points the dummy to indicate to the inspector what a black hat looks like.
POV shot of the killer opening a box of weapons. He takes a razor and slices a piece of paper. Not the paper!
CONFIRMATION: This movie has a disabled character in it.
The killer approaches a house with a man eating in the kitchen. He uses his cane to knock on the door. Adaptation!
The man opens the door but nobody is outside. I hope there is a reason for this beyond trying to create suspense.
He goes back inside and closes the door. Another knock. Suspense
Remember when I made a reference to Hitchcock? I regret that now.
The man goes the window, opens it, and sees nothing. He turns away and the killer uses his cane to grab the neck. Adaptive murder!
He slits the man's throat with a razor. The gore effect is pretty good.
The police investigate the corpse. One of them makes the observation that the body with a slit throat was killed witha razor.
Lydi arrives and interrogates an investigator, claiming that three murders were connected and that it is probably a sex maniac.
She is clearly aware that she is in a giallo movie.
A forensic scientist named Lenny inspects blood stains on the three murders and deduces that all three murders were performed by the same person who had a bad leg and used a cane.
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| My physical therapist once told me that walking with a bad gait could hurt me. I didn't know she was talking about murder accusations. |
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| The moral is: "If you commit a murder, don't get the bottom of your cane wet with blood'" |
The detective requests
"a file of all deviants and sex offenders with leg disabilities"
Clearly a commentary on the way the justice system disproportionately treats disabled people unfairly.
Before this movie can offer any more valuable social commentary, the killer sneaks in, pulls the covers back on a sleeping naked woman, and takes her picture.
Wait, it's not the killer. It's the inspector. Good twist.
Seriously,good twist. And I don't think the inspector is the killer, because of the whole cane thing.
The inspector is angry because Lydia ran the story connecting the murders.
No Trump jokes.
Cut to another sex scene. Of course. Between Kitty and...a man who I don't recognize. The camera lingers on Kitty.
Incidentally, Death Carries A Cane was directed by a man. Maurizio Pradeaux.
The inspector calls in Alberto, tells him the murderer had a leg injury, and asks why he was limping last week.
Alberto stumbles over some lame excuse about spraining his ankle and wonders whether the detective is pulling his leg about the murder case.
I mean, this is commentary about the justice system.
The detective shows Alberto a photograph of him and the murder victim at an art show. Alberto is horrified that the detective would insinuate that he would take a girl to an art show.
She looks just as blonde and thin as most other women in the movie.
Alberto tells Kitty that he was questioned about being the murderer. Kitty laughs.
That night, she pictures the man killing the woman in the window and Alberto stabbing the dummy.
It goes like this:
1. A man stabbed a woman with a knife
2. The man knew how to use a knife to stab a body
3. A dummy is an approximation of a body
4. Alberto knows how to use a knife to stab the dummy
5. Therefore, Alberto knows how to use a knife to stab a woman
6. Alberto is guilty. QED
Kitty tries to leave, but Alberto wakes up and makes her stay. Then they have sex. Of course they do.
Marta, the cleaning lady for the murder victim. calls alberto and says that she knows who killed Marta. We don't see her face, so we know she is mysterious.
Alberto goes over to her house and she is just an old lady.
Disappointing. However, Marta tells me that the man that the murderer killed in his kitchen was the chestnut vendor who saw the first murder. Glad that scene had a point. Marta offers to tell Alberto who the killer is in exchange for $2000.
In a confusing exchange, Alberto says he doesn't have the money. Marta tells him that he will get a lot of money for telling the newspapers the name of the killer. But she still wants the money before telling him. How does that work?
Alberto says he'll get the money by tommorrow.
Marta walks upstairs with a candle and a knife. Not sure why, but it sure fulfills the promised "horror" genre.
A cat jumpscares her.
When Marta reaches the top of the stairs, the man with the cane slits her throat.
On the bright side, Alberto doesn't have to come up with $2000 anymore!
Alberto had been taping the conversation between him and Marta. He plays the tape back to the detective to prove that he wasn't the killer.
Coincidentally, right after the tape plays, the detective gets a call to inform him that Marta was killed. This movie sure doesn't waste time.
A cobbler agrees to mend a show for a blonde (of course) woman. End scene.
There is a cane in the background. And the shoe is warped. And there is no other point to this scene. From this, we can deduce that he is not the killer.
A black-haired(!) fully-clothed(!) woman dances in front of Alberto, Lydia,and Marco as they film. She takes her top off. Right.
She takes her skirt off. Right. It's been almost ten minutes since the last semi-nude scene. I was losing interest in the movie.
Lydia's sister Sylvia calls. No, she hasn't been in the movie yet. Sylvia disapproves of Marco because he films strippers. Okay. She invites Lydia to dinner, but Lydia declines.
This had better be relevant.
The inspector and Alberto meet up. The inspector apologizes because the whole thing with the photo was just a trick to see his reaction. Also, the inspector has men following Alberto. Because the killer is also following Alberto. I'm confused.
Also, the inspector says that the killer got another girl. They know it was the same person because he used the same technique. Slashing throats is apparently unique to this killer.
A nameless woman walks into her apartment. In a shocking departure, she is fully dressed and has black hair.
The killer is under her bed. He waits for her to undress. Of course. Although the camera never shows her naked body. This movie is classier than that.
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| I'm sure this sounded erotic on paper |
The killer suffocates the woman with her pillow. Then he slices her body. Overkill?
Lydia strips as Marco plays the piano. Then they have sex. Again.
Look, I'm not inherently against movies objectifying women, but it keeps interrupting the plot!
The inspector tells Alberto in the worst way possible. that they are going to use Kitty to lure the killer. I paraphrased it:
Inspector: We chose a girl to use to bait the killer. It's Kitty because the killer will know that she is your girlfriend. It won't be dangerous. She won't mind, will she?
Except it sounds worse in the movie.
The killer cuts out a picture of a bag with a certain design on it from the newspaper. In a clever edit, the next shot is of Kitty dressed as a prostitute carrying a bag with that same design. The inspector and Alberto wait in a car nearby.
So I guess somehow they got Lydia to run the newspaper ad so that they could lure the killer to Kitty carrying the same bag as in the ad? Am I missing something?
Anyway, the killer arrives. The cane drops. Kitty gets into his car and the police ambush him.
Oops, it's actually the police chief. Who happened to also use a cane. This is very contrived. The chief tells Alberto to have "the money" on his desk by tomorrow. What money? The $2000 for revealing the name of the killer? Which he doesn't know?
At this point, we learn that the bag is the same one that the lady buying chestnuts used at the scene of the crime. No, that doesn't make sense. Yes, it is in the movie.
Just trying to describe the plot of this movie is so difficult I am having trouble making jokes.
I stopped the movie and went to bed. The next day, I had it figured out. I could have been thinking about something productive, but instead I was trying to work through the plotline of Death Carries A Cane.
The chestnut girl was carrying the bag. She dropped it when she ran away. The police took it in as evidence. They couldn't find the owner, so they just kept it. Then the inspector had the idea to use it to lure the killer whey figured out he was killing witnesses. They change the story so that Kitty was the one carrying it.
I have no idea whether that's true, but at least it makes sense. As much sense as any of the other twists in this movie. If I hadn't admitted that I just made that up, you probably wouldn't have questioned it.
This is the first movie I've covered that actually made me angry. And it has nothing to do with the disability representation. Exploitation movies shouldn't require me to take a night just to understand.
A man comes into Lydia's office and asks whether she wrote the story about the killer. His name is Emmanuel, and he made the bag that Kitty used to lure the killer. And that the girl bought chestnuts had. In my version.
He wants to capitalize on the connection between his bag and the murders with the funniest line in the movie.
"Put Emmanuel's on and you'll be a lady killer."
Emmanuel casually mentions that he has only made one of those bag and knows who bought it. Lydia gets her name. Very convinient. I don't think there's any plot twist that could surprise me at this point.
Lydia walks out as Emmanuel suggests another idea
"We photograph the bag with the bodies. We photograph the two of them together, it's fabulous, it can't miss!"
The chestnut girl comes over to Lydia's place. I got extremely confused because she looks a lot like Kitty.
I thought it was Kitty at first but that made no sense. Less sense than before.
The chestnut girl glances at a photo. Her eyes go wide and she runs away
It's not that bad of a picture.
Seriously, she identifies the guy with light hair as the killer. Just go with it.
Aren't whodonnit stories so satisfying when the killer is someone who was never established?
Chestnut Girl drives away to a phone and calls the police, claiming she knows who the killer is.
But she doesn't tell him who it is. she is just upset because that means that the killer will kill her now. She hangs up and goes back into her car and drives away. That was a waste of the police's time.
Also a waste of her time, as the killer is somehow in the backseat.
How did he know that she figured out who he was and find her so quickly?
If he has some sort of supernatural foresight ability... that would be one of the more believable twists in this movie.
Somehow, just by strangling her with his cane, blood splatters from her neck all the way to the windshield. THEN he cuts her neck open.
He wants to remain inconspicuous, right? So he kills Chestnut Girl while she's driving on a busy road. How does he get out of the car without people noticing? Will he have to go kill all of the other drivers? 24 minutes left.
As per usual, the graphic violence is followed by a nude scene. One thing about this movie isn't predictable!
Alberto sketches Kitty's nude body. Kitty says she wants to be a singer and asks Alberto to listen to a tape she made. Alberto complains that they have enough to worry about.
Kitty: You can't continue to be interested in cripples and crimes, you know. Life must go on.
Screenwriter: Did you notice the alliteration?
Yeah, he should just move past the serial killer who is still at large.
Kitty can't find the cassette player. Alberto says it's in the kitchen. Turns out that Alberto used the same tape to record his conversation with Marta, just on a different track. It took me too long to figure that out, and I remember cassette players!
Conveniently, Alberto accidentally presses the button that replays his conversation with Marta.
Marta (recording): [the newspapers] will be dancing just as pretty as the girls did and you won't have any trouble getting it young man, I can tell you.
From this, he figures out that all three victims were dancers at the same school.
...are they implying that the killer's motive is that he's upset that other people can dance and he can't?
That is simultaneously brilliant and really, really dumb.
He never listens to Kitty's performance.
Alberto calls Lydia and asks whether the MacDonald girl went to a dance academy. Lydia tells him the name of the academy. Then she calls Sylvia.
Sylvia apparently went to the same dance academy. Conveniently. Lydia asks whether she knew the MacDonald girl. Sylvia snaps that she doesn't want to talk about the school and hangs up. Lydia has a flashback to Sylvia using a cane back at school when she hurt her leg.
Did the movie ever establish that the killer was male? Does Lydia know that? I really don't care at this point.
Now the implication is that Sylvia hurt her leg at the dance academy and went back to kill all of her classmates because she was jealous that she had to leave.
That is simultaneously even more brilliant and really, really, really dumb.
Alberto and Kitty go to the dancing academy and ask about the Martinez girl. The head tells them that she never head of her. Alberto and Kitty leave. The killer approaches the school
A woman named Mrs. Exposition hops in the backseat. She tells Alberto and Kitty that she is the secretary and was Martinez's best friend at school.
C-O-N-V-I-N-I-E-N-T-L-Y
The blond guy approaches a shop window and looks at the razors.
The camera never shows whether he uses a cane. If he is not the killer, the movie better have a really good excuse for this scene.
Lydia calls the police because she never saw the chestnut girl.
Kitty, the secretary, and Alberto sneak into the school. I had trouble figuring out whether it was the secretary because all the women look similar and the picture quality is really poor.
Alberto asks the secretary why she is helping them. The secretary replies that she and the Martinez girl were "more than just friends"
This development is significant because it justifies a ten second lesbian sex flashback.
Not that any of the other sex scenes had justification
Kitty says she has to go to the bathroom and leaves. In any other slasher-esque movie, I would say that she will die soon. This movie has so many pointless diversions, I doubt it.
Alberto and the secretary pick up some binders full of photos and flip through them. The killer approaches.
Alberto is definitely going to find a reveal in that binder. But will the killer get him first? So suspenseful.
He doesn't find a reveal. Alberto and the secretary bring the binder to kitty and tell her to flip through it and take pictures of each page. Taking pictures of pictures. such a thrilling climax! Meanwhile, Alberto and the secretary go upstairs to find more records.
the killer looks at kitty. Kitty stops on one page and says, out loud
"But it's impossible. It just can't be. But it might. because..."
The killer turns out the light at this. He approaches Kitty with a flashlight. Kitty thinks he is Alberto, letting him strangle her. But she somehow gets away. Because she is a main character.
Kitty runs outside to a greenhouse and bars the doors.
...the killer is above breaking glass?
Alberto runs downstairs and can't find Kitty. The killer starts to slowly break the glass.
I have mixed feelings about this.
It's a clever way to reveal the killer bit by bit.
Kitty should have realized that glass is breakable
Right before the killer's face is shown,the movie cuts to Alberto and the secretary looking around for a few seconds.
There are four minutes left in the movie
The killer approaches. His face is hidden. He extends his cane towards kitty's neck.
Three minutes left.
It would be hilarious if the movie ended without revealing the killer
Kitty scrambles away, but he gets her neck.
The detective shoots the killer in the back. He came out of nowhere.
At 1:22:36 of this 1:25:18 movie, the killer is revealed as...Marco.
Okay. Whatever.
Who was Marco again?
Right. The director.That makes sense. When the Chestnut Girl picked up the photo and saw the killer, the audience thought it was the blonde guy. But it was actually Marco.
This is the one of the few times I can honestly use the phrase "That makes sense," in reference to this movie.
It doesn't explain the blonde guy, though.
Lydia walks in and is understandably upset. She says she didn't know.
The detective says that Marco just pretended to be lame to throw the police off.
So...this movie doesn't have a disability in it. I wasted a lot of time for nothing.
The final couple minutes is Lydia playing the role of the psychiatrist in Psycho:
Marco had a fear of failure, so he killed successful dancers. He also faked impotence for...some reason.
The End!
Death Carries A Cane starts out strong but falters halfway through. There is too much gratuitous plot that interferes with the sex scenes.
What a worthless excuse of a review. lol
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