A famed jewel thief named Rochard is slashed to death on a train. His daughter Nicole, a famous nightclub performer in Paris, is questioned by the police about some missing diamonds but she claims to know nothing about this. Nicole is then terrorized by a masked man with piercing blue eyes who demands to know where her father has hidden the stolen diamonds.
The film is written by no less a figure than Ernesto Gastaldi, who is considered by some to be the father of giallo. The director, Luciano Ercoli, is interestingly perhaps better known as a producer or production designer. He more or less fell into directing as a cost-cutting measure -- one less person to hire. (Tim Lucas compares Ercoli to Brian DePalma... and there is some truth to that.)
Who doesn't love composer Stelvio Cipriani, probably among the top composers in Italy (behind perhaps Ennio Morricone and Goblin for genre film). What we get here is rather sparse (many scenes have no music at all) but the man does what he does well. Not surprisingly, his work has been used by Quentin Tarantino, the champion of such films as this.
A note on the lead actor, an American. Frank Wolff had bit roles in his first two films, Roger Corman's "I Mobster" and "The Wasp Woman". On Corman's advice, Frank Wolff remained in Europe and became a well-known character actor in over fifty, mostly Italian-made, films of the 1960s, including crime/suspense "gialli" and spaghetti westerns.
Director Ercoli obviously does not have the name recognition of Mario Bava or Dario Argento, but he still knows how to make a great giallo (with a dollop of influence from Argento's "Bird With the Crystal Plumage"). A masked and gloved killer, a bit of mirrors, and an unhealthy fascination with eyes -- close-ups of eyes, false eyes, windows that look like eyes. Nobody knows eyes like the Italians!
The Arrow Video blu-ray allows the viewer to watch either the Italian or English versions (because sometimes you need a dub, and sometimes you don't). The disc also comes with: Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, by far the most knowledgeable non-Italian scholar of the Italian genre film. Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. A featurette comprising newly-edited archive footage of director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro. A career-spanning interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani. Italian genre fans (which includes pretty much all horror fans) will love this disc, part of Arrow's "Death Walks Twice" set.
