Who Saw Her Die?

An obvious catalyst to Nic Roeg's Don't Look Now. This film had a great first half but after that it sort of lost the plot a bit. The ending was horrible and some of the dialogue to risible. On the positive side, the settings were splendid and the music was harrowing at times.If your interested in Giallo films this is not the place to start your mission. Try Aldo Lado's far superior Short Night of Glass Dolls instead.

WHO SAW HER DIE? (1972) *** George Lazenby, Anita Strindberg, Peter Chatel, Adolfo Celi. In this engaging giallo directed by Aldo Lado, George Lazenby plays Franco Serpieri, a well-known Venetian sculptor. After Serpieri's young daughter is murdered, he grows impatient with the efforts of the police and tries to find the killer himself, with some help from his estranged wife (Strindberg). The film sticks to a familiar formula: the likely suspects are killed off one by one, and the last man (or woman) standing is revealed as the murderer. But the process feels clumsier than it ought to here, and since the killer turns out to be one of the film's least developed characters, the ending is less than satisfying. Fortunately, though, painterly cinematography and an intriguing score by the brilliant Ennio Morricone help compensate for the weaknesses of the script. Recommended.

A child murderer is running loose in Venice. Distraught father Lazenby investigates after his daughter is killed.

A superb giallo from Aldo Lado. From the very first scene Lado builds up a tense atmosphere that holds it's grip on the viewer until the very end. In keeping up with some of the giallo's best trademarks, this film has excellent photography, making good use of Venice's enchanting scenery. Ennio Morricone's haunting musical score is another huge plus.

The film is well written and has a good story, albeit a bit complicated. It took me two viewings to get everything, but maybe I'm just a little dense at times. Maybe it doesn't bear too much scrutiny, but I didn't find any huge plot holes. The revelation of the killer is, as in most giallo's, quite a surprise. I'm guessing you won't guess it.

George Lazenby (in my opinion a very underrated Bond) is a very likable leading man, gives a credible performance as the grieving father and amateur sleuth and Anita Strindberg looks smashing.

I advice you the check this one out if you're a fan of this genre.

_Chi L'ha Vista Morire?_ is, visually, a very beautiful film. From the first shots emphasising the starkness of the alpine landscape which segue into similarly stark black and white photos and drawings from a police file to the closing scenes, the cinematography is beautiful. In particular, one shot in which a flock of pigeons taking flight in a town square provides a metaphor for the rising panic of the father, played by George Lazenby, struck me as particularly beautiful - both aesthetically pleasing in its own right and a very tasteful way to lay the ground for the scene that follows. A unifying visual motif is the veil worn by the killer, which makes for some interesting point-of-view shots, although the impact must have been blunted somewhat by viewing on video.

Unfortunately, there's some flaws that detracted from the experience for me. Lazenby does not speak Italian, so his lines are dubbed. At times, the sound level appears to be much too high, making the dubbing glaring. Similarly, the soundtrack is at times overbearing, particularly during appearances by the killer, whose discordant "theme music" became incredibly annoying, particularly when the rest of the film was marked by such a light touch. Mercifully, this problem is rectified at the climax and the music is cut short.

On the visual side, watch for some very fake looking blood. Many scenes (particularly interior scenes) are very dark, which caused me some problems in determining what was going on, but again this may have been compounding by watching on videotape rather than the big screen.

Overall, a satisfying mystery film, if a little slow-paced.

For those of you wondering whether George Lazenby ever made another picture, after incarnating the most under-appreciated Bond ever in 1969's "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"...well, here he is, three years later, in the Italian giallo "Who Saw Her Die?" In this one, he plays a sculptor named Franco who is living in Venice. When his cute little red-haired daughter is murdered and found floating in a canal, Franco naturally embarks on a quest to find the demented child killer. Lazenby, it must be said here, is almost unrecognizable from three years before. He sports a sleazy handlebar moustache in this film and looks decidedly thinner, almost gaunt, as if he'd been afflicted with a wasting disease in the interim. And the film itself? Well, it's something of a mixed bag. Yes, it does feature stylish direction by Aldo Lado, as well as a pretty freaky score by master composer Ennio Morricone, consisting largely of echoey chanting. We are also given plentiful scenery of Venice, which looks both beautiful and seedy here, an intriguing story to set our mental teeth into, AND Adolfo Celi, always a welcome presence (and another Bond alumnus, from "Thunderball"), here playing a mysterious art dealer. On the down side, I must confess that I was at a loss to understand what the hell was going on throughout most of the picture; what explanations do come toward the end are either half heard from distant rooms or grunted out during fisticuffs. Dubbing doesn't help matters (subtitles would have been a nice option), and the film is never particularly scary or suspenseful. I'll probably need to sit through this one again to get a better handle. Still, "Who Saw Her Die?" remains an interesting, nice-to-look-at giallo, nicely captured here in widescreen on yet another fine DVD from Anchor Bay.