You have to baer in mind that Argento was in 1979 not the accomlished film maker he is today. So naturally The Cat of Nine Tails is bound to be seen critical in comparison to his alter work. But unless we are Wunderkinder all of us learn from our mistakes. One of the main issues about the film is that it is just too long. I caught myself losing interest in the story every 15 minutes or so only to be drawn back into it violently. Visually the film is well made with some great scenes which really show promise. There is a great late night scene at the cemetery for example, the murders are well executed (no pun intended) and he also does some great work with eyes as symbols (Blind hero, killer's eyes) although he doesn't pull it off completely from my point of view.There are a lot of good elements but you can see that he is still developing at that point in his career. The cast is great: ultra-cool James Franciscus, ultra-sexy Cathrine Spaak and Karl Malden in an exquisite performance as blind ex-journalist. All in all, it's a film well wort watching.
Review of The Cat o' Nine Tails
