Review: The Fifth Cord - 1971

INTRODUCTION

I've decided that for my first giallo on the site, I would choose a somewhat lesser known title. This is not a work of Bava's, Argento's, or even Fulci's. This is a twisted tale of an alcoholic journalist trying to piece together a string of seemingly unrelated murders. This is Luigi Bazzoni's The Fifth Cord.

THE PROS

My god is this one a real gem. I honestly don't think I have ever been more pleasantly surprised before in my history of viewing gialli. The Fifth Cord was the kind of late-night thriller you would probably pop in to go to sleep watching. But if you actually throw it on to view it, you are treated to a rather impressive work. Franco Nero is grand as our drunken reporter, Displaying competence, humor, and rage between his moments of unadulterated inebriation, Nero is easily the star in terms of acting prowess. But there is one very worth runner up: Rosella Falk, who also starred in Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2 and Dario Argento's 2001 giallo Sleepless. In the role of the disabled wife of a suspicious doctor, Falk provides a magnificent performance in a frightening sequence in which she is alone in their house and the lights go out and she is soon crawling on the floor. The pain, anguish, and raw fear is absolutely chilling, and I love it. Also adding to that sequence is Bazzoni's visual sense and cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Yes, Storaro as in the DOP for Bertolucci's The Conformist. These two, Storaro and Bazzoni, have created a visual masterpiece full of elegant camera movement, an ever changing color palate, and ingenious lighting. I honestly could look at this film for hours on end in stills. In fact, here's just one shot.

Pretty intriguing isn't it? The aesthetic provided by the background, the silhouette of Nero and his boss, the reflection provided by the roof of the car, this film doesn't look quite like any other film I have seen during this period. So hats off to Storaro and Bazzoni for keeping the visuals always eye-catching. But the cherry on top of it all, the score was composed by Ennio Morricone. Here he provides his characteristic trendsetting style of using lush romance lead by wordless vocals, freakish atonal madness, and pleasantly groovy source music. Not necessarily anything too new or noteworthy, but it's tried and true impact on the films he blesses them with is.

THE CONS
But while these technical elements all add up to a film worth your time, there is one massive
caveat: pacing. This film, for being but 90 minutes, felt like a three hour affair. All of the cinematographic wonders, great acting, and apt music won't save this film from its snail's pace. The writing itself really only fails in that department though, for it is pretty tightly scripted for a giallo. If anything, there is a noirish sensibility, with cold character interactions and tense sexual relationships. But with that said, that brings us to a bit of a niche issue: it's not much of a giallo. I mean there is enough style to feed the whole of contemporary Hollywood thrillers, which are bankrupt of such concepts. But from the little things such as having tan latex gloves to the larger moments such as the murders themselves not being too flashy, this feels more like a clean cut urban thriller (clean cut referring to the minimal handheld camera work) than any one of the well-known "spaghetti slashers" that many adore to this day. But I will preface with this before you go and see the film, these issues are of little consequence if you just prefer thrillers in a blanket sense. I'm pressing on this because cinematography like this doesn't come often these days.

CONCLUSION
On the whole, The Fifth Cord is a solidly stylish thriller full of great shots and sequences, yet is somewhat hampered by its slow pace and its nature as being not the most "gialloish"of gialli with its lack of genre norms. With effective scoring and solid acting though, along with a surprisingly passable screenplay full of a certain noirish style. I recommend this to those who enjoy such odd thrillers, but also would still encourage giallo fans to give this a shot for its cinematography is the stuff I'd imagine most fans would hold in high regard. Thanks for reading.