Delivered in-between the far-superior "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" and "Four Flies on Grey Velvet", this Dario Argento murder-mystery doesn't quite rise to those heights--and Argento himself was dismissive of it--but there's still a great deal to treasure here. Karl Malden is terrific as an ex-newspaperman man and puzzle-lover, blinded 15 years ago in an accident and living with his orphaned niece, who partners with reporter James Franciscus in a case involving a break-in at a forensic science institute wherein the burglar assaulted the night watchman but didn't take anything. Soon, a doctor at the institute is killed in a mysterious 'accident' involving a train, followed by the photographer who snapped a picture of the man's death--revealing that it was indeed a murder. Argento also had a hand in the original story and co-authored the screenplay with Bryan Edgar Wallace; he gives us fully-rounded characters with lives outside their jobs, including their extracurricular activities, their acquaintances, their sexual proclivities (including a stop at a gay bar that must have been eyebrow-raising in 1971). If his pacing is sometimes slow, it is deliberate, careful. He loves mounting his narrative with as much minutiae as he can stuff into a frame, although he may give viewers too much time to rethink the scenario and find faults with his plotting (on the crowded train platform, did no one notice the killer?). Argento-buffs probably won't mind the flaws, of course, and with that boffo finale you can hardly blame them. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Cat o' Nine Tails
