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Who Saw Her Die?
[Blue Underground]
1972; color
Directed by Aldo Lado
Starring: George Lazenby, Anita Strindberg, Adolfo Celi, Dominique Boschero & Peter Chatel
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Who Saw Her Die?, Aldo Lado's second film, is a slightly above average by-the-book Giallo, with a couple twists to keep things interesting. For starters, the victims in this one are young girls (pre-teen) which is definitely away from the norm. Two girls are killed over the course of the film (only one is an on-screen murder; the opening scene) but there are tacit implications that there have been more. There are other victims as well, but those are more of the killer protecting his / her identity variety than a planned killing. And this killer does plan, or at least stalk. Always dressed from head to toe like an old woman, in shades of black and wearing a veil, the villain spends a lot of time following the girl whose disappearance and murder become the catalyst for almost everything in the film. Once she disappears, her sculptor father (played by a mustachioed George Lazenby, about a year after his single turn as James Bond) becomes obsessed with finding her killer. We get a healthy amount of suspicious characters, all designed to be red herrings but all with enough subplot to keep you guessing right up until the end. Lazenby is actually pretty decent as the freaked out dad trying to get over his own grief, discover the killer's identity, and find time to screw his wife (played by Giallo mainstay Anita Strindberg) and his mistress. (Not at the same time.) Yeah, he's got a full plate. In a lot of ways, the biggest star in the movie is Venice. (The city where it was filmed.) The canals and waterways add a different dimension, especially at night, and the locations seem to be perpetually shrouded in fog. The fog scenes are where Lado really gets the job done as far as capturing the unsettled feeling of not being really sure of what or who you're seeing. As the tale unravels, each set of characters increasingly becomes more suspicious in their activities. The further along the story goes, the more scenes happen at night or in the fog which does a nice job reinforcing and building tension. The Ennio Morricone score is like icing on the cake in more ways than one. Not only is it appropriately creepy, it's an obvious influence on Goblin's music for Suspiria. Fans of the genre should enjoy this, and it should have appeal to newbies as well as fans of thrillers in general.
—Giallo Biafra
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