Who Saw Her Die?, 1972.
Directed by Aldo Lado.
Starring George Lazenby, Adolfo Celi, Anita Strindberg, Dominique Boschero, Alessandro Haber, and Nicoletta Elmi.
SYNOPSIS:
Four years after the murder of a young girl, the daughter of a famous sculptor is kidnapped and killed, prompting the grieving father and his estranged wife to investigate.
In Who Saw Her Die?, a young girl is murdered in strange circumstances, forcing her parents to investigate and become embroiled in a mystery that directs them to look deep within themselves and question their choices for the answers they seek, or something like that. Anyway, there are a lot of intense sex scenes, black-clad women in veils, a scenic Venetian setting and two James Bond alumni (in the form of George Lazenby and Adolfo Celi) with badly dubbed voices.
All sounds a bit too much like Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, if we’re being honest. However, that movie was still a year off when this was originally released, which makes Who Saw Her Die? somewhat influential in the world of child-in-peril movies. What Who Saw Her Die? does not do, however, is go down the forced supernatural element that Roeg’s movie does, which in narrative terms separates the two parents as one believes in the afterlife and the other does not, creating divisions and contemplative character moments. Here, the parents – Franco (played by a very lean-looking George Lazenby) and his estranged wife Elizabeth (Anita Strindberg) – are already separated from each other, with daughter Roberta (Nicoletta Elmi) visiting her father for a holiday.
But Franco is something of a swinger around town, as his late-period Beatles hairstyle and porn moustache would indicate, and it is due to his being desperate to have a quickie with his mistress while Roberta plays with a group of kids outside that means he is not present when she is kidnapped. Cue Elizabeth turning up for the funeral after Roberta is found floating in the Venice waterways, and the race is on to find out who the killer is and what is the connection to the murder of another red-headed girl being bludgeoned to death four years before.
This being an Italian giallo, the creepy nursery rhyme score – courtesy of Ennio Morricone – suggests more than is actually happening on the screen, as the invasive child-like chanting seems to play every time whoever is onscreen stops talking, but it is very effective in creating the right atmosphere for the murder mystery. The sex scenes between Franco and his mistress, then Franco and Elizabeth (whose facial expression barely changes throughout the movie) aren’t quite up there with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie when it comes to projecting the chemistry between the characters – mainly because there isn’t any – but George Lazenby does portray a similar vulnerability in his role as he did in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Yes, Franco may be a player and not exactly in the running for Father of the Year, but Lazenby’s reactions and expressions make Franco more sympathetic than he probably ought to be.
The biggest positive for this release, however, is Shameless’ 2K restoration, which gives the Venice setting an extra layer of clarity and rich colours, giving those early 1970s fashions the platform they deserve. The movie itself is beautifully shot and creates the right mood, which, when combined with Morricone’s score, does most of the heavy lifting as the plot is a little ponderous and confusing, inserting scenes like Franco interrogating somebody whilst playing them at table tennis, just for a little onscreen movement no doubt. Nevertheless, Who Saw Her Die? does have some wonderfully staged gialli moments, a solid cast with a few recognisable faces and it is one of the best-looking movies of its kind, although Adolfo Celi doesn’t look right without an eye patch.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
