Cold Eyes of Fear

Director: Enzo G. Castellari
Script: Tito Carpi, Leo Anchoriz, Enzo G. Castellari
Cast: Giovanna Ralli, Frank Wolff, Fernando Ray, Julian Mateos, Karin Schubert, Leon Lenoiri, Gianni Garko
Running time: 91.5 minutes
Year: 1971
Certificate: 18

The film begins in a promising way with a black gloved assailant stalking an attractive lingerie-clad lady, cutting her clothes off with a knife and then having sex with her. Suddenly the rug is pulled from under the audience’s feet and we realise that what we’re seeing isn’t what it appears to be and we’ve been duped.

We then start the movie proper with a pick-up in a club and a middle-aged lawyer, Peter Bedell (Gianni Garko), sashaying away with a high-class hooker, Anna (Giovanna Ralli), over to his uncle’s posh pad in the suburbs of London. Unfortunately, instead of a night of fun and fornication the couple are stopped in their tracks by Quill (Julian Mateos) who’s a badly dubbed (with an unfortunate Cockney accent) Spanish assassin with a bit of a Freddie Mercury/Keith Moon look going on. Not long after realising that they’ve been taken hostage, a metropolitan police officer (Frank Wolff) turns up, but soon dashes hope of salvation as he’s the real villain of the piece, being the mastermind of the operation.

Apparently, this ex-cop, Arthur, is looking for some incriminating paperwork that he thinks will implicate the judge, as being corrupt; the judge who put him away for over a decade.. He wants revenge on Peter’s Uncle Bedell (played by Fernando Ray) and means to get it, whatever the cost. Only the nephew and his new hooker friend can stop him.

Cold Eyes of Fear begins with a giallo kind of vibe, with probably its strongest scene, and then quickly turns into a more mundane, but still fairly interesting, crime thriller that quickly becomes a kind of ‘cat and mouse’ game between the four main protagonists. The judge himself gets a look in from time-to-time as he sits behind his desk issuing orders and later trying to stop his cat from setting off a door bomb.

Despite most of the film being set in one location director Castellari tries, and mostly succeeds, in making the film look decent and even inserts a gang fight to wake up the audience around the halfway mark. But most of the ‘action’ is of the verbal sparring variety, which works for the most part, although some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, to say the least.

The acting is generally good, especially Ralli, who manages to portray a lot of emotion through just her eyes alone. The music, by the ever reliable Ennio Morricone, is suitably jazzy, with a hint of darkness, and was recorded when he was still experimenting as a member of free-improv’ collective Gruppo di improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. There’s also some cool footage of the West-End of London, at night, as our amorous couple head for Paul’s uncle’s place. One can even see some cinema billboards that help pinpoint when the film was shot – e.g. ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’ (1970) is screening.

Unfortunately, what lets the film down is its lack of ambition, plot-wise, some sub-standard dialogue and some fairly banal fight/action sequences, which look like they took two minutes to choreograph. For example, the murder by reversing car is particularly bad! And, sadly, the end fight, so to speak, is mostly done in the dark so you can’t see very much.

Cold Eyes of Fear is being distributed by Indicator on Blu-ray. There are a number of extras on the disc including:

Audio Commentary with David Flint (from Reprobate podcast) and Adrian Smith (Movies from Mania.com) (27 mins) – An interesting commentary where we learn that the tour of the West-End the lead couple take was shot fresh, that the film was an Italian/Spanish co-production and that the German actress, Karin Schubert, from the first scene, later migrated to hard core porn films in order to pay for her son’s recovery from drugs.

Enzo G. Castellari directs Fear ((24 mins) – This archive interview reveals that the film’s budget was small, but they still had a lot of fun making it. We also learn that actor Frank Wolffe was having major problems with his wife while shooting the film – she was basically cheating on him!

Gianna Garko: An Italian in London (14.5 mins) – We learn that actor Frank Wolffe took his own life a couple of months after making the film and that the film wasn’t a box office success. Garko reveals that he was also in Space 1999, and that the section in London’s West-End was shot guerrilla style with hidden cameras amongst an unsuspecting public.

Gianfranco Amicucci: The man in the editing room (27 mins) – Gianfranco reveals that originally he’d wanted to be a pilot, but couldn’t afford it. However, he later did a course in aerial and underwater filmmaking and went into filmmaking instead. He then went on to work on some high profile crime flicks including Sex for Angels and High Crime.

A fearsome collaboration: Lovely John on Morricone (15 mins) – He talks about Morricone’s career, particularly during his collaboration with collective Gruppo di improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. There are some nice posters featured throughout the interview.

Desperate Moments – theatrical trailer (3 mins) – The jazzy soundtrack is very noticeable here

Image gallery – 18 stills including lobby cars and film posters