The Man with Icy Eyes

Eddie (Antonio Sabato, Sette Orchidee macchiate di rosso) is an Italo-American reporter working in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He leads the investigation upon the murder of the wealthy senator Robertson, who has been shot in front of his house. A suspect, Carlos Valdez (Giovanni Petrucci, Estratto dagli archivi segreti della polizia), who happens to be a radical opponent, has been arrested on the crime scene, but informers talk about another guy involved, "a man with icy eyes". Eddie should now find the mysterious killer, but he seems not to be very perspicacious nor persistent, and is continuously to be pushed further by his chief Hammond (Victor Buono, Lo Strangolatore di Vienna), while the editor of their newspaper Davis (Keenan Wynn, C'era una volta il West) does not want him to go too far.

Fortunately Eddie finds a witness who saw Valdez with the icy-eyed man the night of the murder: the stripper Ann (Barbara Bouchet, La Tarentola dal ventre nero). Her witnessing is to send Valdez to the gas chamber, to the despair of his wife (his sister in the English version: Faith Domergue, Una sull'Altra). But hasn't Eddie too easily accepted a rather convenient solution? He is warned by Robertson's astral consultant Isaac (Corrado Gaipa, Giornata nera per l'Ariete) that his doom shall come through this issue. And as he tries to find the unknown so-called icy man, witnesses are killed or silenced. This small giallo set in the USA, taking benefice of its well appreciated actors in the genre, lacks however of nerves or tension, and the director has pain to put its pieces together; but it should take the spectator until the end without displeasure. (Viewed in an English 1h31 version.)

From the way this film started and from its title, I felt maybe we were in giallo territory but as this develops it becomes a much more routine thriller. Albeit and interesting, involving and largely successful one complete with suspenseful ending (just a little over done as we count the minutes to midnight!) and gas chamber scene. Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we see various real locations so this may have been real too, it certainly looked it. Adriano Bolzoni is not very convincing as the harried reporter running round trying to sort things out but I guess he looks good. As, of course does the majestic Barbara Bouchet, who acts her socks off (and everything else) and makes the very most of a modest part. I suppose the storyline is a bit weak and there aren't too many thrills and spills but it kept me happy. Partly, I think, because the supporting cast are good and varied, there is some humour, the thing keeps moving forward, it is well shot and it is also much helped by a jaunty soundtrack.

Another well made, but snail paced film from Alberto De Martino, a quasi-giallo set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which lends a surreal Breaking Bad vibe to the proceedings.

A senator is gunned down outside of his house and a man who claims he was tricked into being there is arrested and charged with his murder. Antonio Sabato is the hot shot reporter who thinks that something down quite sound right about the whole deal, and sets out to prove the man innocent, only to end up getting the guy sent down and marked for execution! Whoops! Better try harder, Antonio! Hindering or helping Antonio is his boss Keenan Wynn, a friend of the senator, and Barbara Bouchet, who claims to have witnessed a man with icy eyes talking to the accused. Antonio thinks she's full of crap, but then he starts to receive contact from the guy with the icy eyes, things get very serious.

Indeed, so serious that director De Martino must have thought that things weren't stupid enough (I'm sure he was happy things were dull enough though), so he added in the semi-supernatural plot twist of the astrologer who predicts Antonio will die just before midnight on the same day that guy in jail will get gassed. Then this guy proceeds to be everywhere Antonio is, just to remind him over and over and over again! Then there's the insurance salesman who is oblivious to the car chases and threats to Antonio while continually trying to sell him life insurance. Oh, and the bit where Antonio thinks he's survived to midnight until someone reminds him that it's Daylight Savings Time and the clocks have gone back one hour! That last hour where Antonio drives around trying to solve the case it most hilarious of all, because he zips around about forty locations, has a fight, slaps Barbara Bouchet around, drives all around town and makes it outside of the prison for the end of the film, all within one hour. Amazing.

This is yet another boring film with just the odd bit of interest from De Martino. Somehow this guy went on to work with a lot of A-list American actors. Go figure.

The Man With Icy Eyes is one of the rarest Giallo's out there, and to be honest I'm not really surprised that it hasn't cemented itself a more profound place in Giallo history. The film is undoubtedly very well made and features a strong plot; but unfortunately Alberto De Martino's film is not particularly exciting at any point and the lack of gory murders that made other genre films such highlights makes the film's chances of becoming a genre favourite slimmer still. I would say that the film is something of a cross-over between the Giallo and Polizi genres, with a lot of the focus being on an investigation carried out by the lead character. The film begins with the assassination of an Arizona state senator. Ambitious journalist Eddie Mills (an Italian immigrant) is assigned to report on the case and he promptly begins investigating the crime. His investigation leads him to a stripper who seems to know more than she is letting on. The police later arrest a man they describe as having 'icy eyes', but Eddie believes he may not be the real killer.

The film is fairly well placed; although it does have a tendency to get confusing, and this is at least partly caused by the lack of excitement which can make concentrating on the film difficult. The mystery itself is not particularly interesting either, and I found myself not particularly caring who the murderer is on more than one occasion. I have to admit that the copy I saw was not of the best quality, so I couldn't fully appreciate the director's capturing of the locations; but most of it looked pretty desolate and the film doesn't feature the captivating colour scheme shown in many of the best Giallo's. Antonio Sabato takes the lead role and it decent in it, and he gets good support from the sexy Barbara Bouchet; whose role was too small for my liking. There's not a great deal of distraction from the central plot; only a 'supernatural' side plot that doesn't go anywhere. Overall, I have to admit that I found this film to be rather dull. There's nothing outstanding about it, and I'd only recommend it to real hardcore collectors.

After the death of a senator, a reporter helps to break a case that sends a suspect to Death Row, only to get hints that the man is innocent and the suspect remains at large, forcing him to try searching for the actual culprit in the crimes with help from his underground friends before that happens.

Overall, this was a massively underwhelming and generally problematic giallo. Among the best aspects here is the fine setup that provides a rather intriguing mystery at the core of the film. The initial murder and the trial bring about the kind of fine starting point to look into the incident after the discovery of the stripper eyewitness who starts to help clue him in on the fact that the trial might've been a sham, and the real killer is still at large. There's some fun to be had with the concurrent series of meetings that come about involving the figures looking to help the case. These are brought together rather well in the final half as the build-up before then is made quite a bit more intensive, as the series of attempts on the life of the reporter and the stripper in his care makes for a fine series of encounters and chases that inject some action into things. These manage to provide some enjoyable factors here as there are a series of issues with this one holding it back. The main issue with this one is the fact that there's just not a whole lot of anything interesting happening throughout here to keep the excitement level going. The central story here invites plenty of action with the race to stop the execution from happening as he gets help from a series of underground figures trying to help him out on his quest to save him, yet here, nothing happens. The endless meetings and discussions he has with them trying to make sense of how he got framed for the murder and what the various clues mean, which sends him off to meet someone else and it never once comes off like there's any kind of urgency or hurry, as the body count is so dangerously low due to there not being any traditional stalking scenes. That leads into the film's other big factor, where it's just way too unconcerned with trying to solve the identity of the killer and trying to save the condemned man from the executioner's chair. This is a rather bizarre choice where the group seems to be quite well aware that there's a real killer out there, as the bombshell about the condemned man being the wrong victim is already out, so it should be about looking into who actually did it that should be the way this one operates. Rather, the killer gets revealed as a last-second mark that comes about so quickly it's hard to register who actually did it or what the plan actually was about, causing this one to have a few major drawbacks throughout.

Rated Unrated/R: Language, Violence, and Brief Nudity.