Respectable lawyer Peter (Gianno Garko) picks up Anna (Giovanni Ralli), an Italian woman of dubious virtue, from the club and takes her back to his Uncle's place. They soon discover they are not alone. A gunman, Quill (Julian Mateos), is waiting for them.
Peter's Uncle, Judge Baddell (Fernando Rey), phones and the young man tries to get the message through. When a policeman turns up at the door to deliver a note, Peter thinks he and Anna are saved. But the policeman, Welt (Frank Wolff), is bogus. Worse, he is in league with Quill and intent on extracting his revenge on Judge Baddell for a past betrayal and a 15 year prison sentence…
It's debatable whether Cold Eyes of Fear could really be counted a giallo. Take away the opening scene and you pretty much have a straight crime thriller, where plotting is straightforward and motives banal.
Director Enzo G Castellari (Enzo Girolami) directs with a fair degree of showy style, but one also gets the definite sense from the (over)abundance of fist-fights that he would have been happier directing more straightforward action fare. He also seems to have difficulties with basic continuity as the London exteriors switch between day and night somewhat haphazardly.
Frank Wolff, Giovanni Ralli and Gianni Garko deliver quality performances but Julian Mateos – along with the majority of the supporting players – is poorly dubbed with an unconvincing Cockney accent that detracts somewhat. Fernando Rey, meanwhile, is underused in a role he could sleepwalk through.
The saving grace is Ennio Morricone's score. A partially improvised selection of atonal jazz noises, it's not the sort of thing you'd likely want to listen to for pleasure but, in its context here, adds immeasurably.
Redemption's Region 0 PAL format DVD presents the film in "its original 1.55:1 theatrical aspect ratio". It sounds like an odd ratio and, with the names on the credits being chopped off at the sides and some of the subsequent compositions looking a little unbalanced, you do wonder if someone has made a mistake.
Whatever the case, it's hard to miss the graininess and scratchiness of the film, along with a fair degree of artefacting in the darker scenes. Whilst grade-A visuals are unlikely on an obscure Italian/Spanish co-production of this vintage, grade-B rather than grade-D should have been achievable.
Audio – a mono track with a fair degree of background hiss throughout – is similarly unimpressive.
Extras wise, the disc is also a poor show. Two examples each of video art, poster art and lobby cards do not galleries make. The only other is a trailer for the film under its Desperate Moments moniker.
All told, an average film coupled with a poor DVD make Cold Eyes of Fear a completists-only purchase.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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