L'assassino... è al telefono / The Killer is on the Phone

Whilst preparing for  the murder of his current target hitman Ranko Dragovic (Telly Savalas) has a chance encounter with Eleanor (Anne Heywood), the wife of one of Dragovic's previous victims from five years earlier. She had been suffering from amnesia about this traumatic event, but now begins to recall details of it, thus making herself a threat to the killer.

I'd previously seen this 1972 giallo by Alberto De Martino from an old VHS source, and dubbed into English, so it was a welcome opportunity to see it again for the first time in a clean, widescreen, Italian dub with English fansubs.

Savalas is a suitably menacing, near-silent presence, recalling his role in Bava's Lisa and the Devil, while Heywood passes muster in the Frightened Woman role more usually assigned to an Edwige Fenech, Florinda Bolkan, Carroll Baker or Dagmar Lassander.

The theme of the unreliability of memory is, of course, a staple of the filone -- one thinks of The Girl Who Knew too Much, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Lizard in a Woman's Skin before this, and of Footprints on the Moon and The Man Without Memory a couple of years afterwards.

While not reaching the heights of these points of comparison, The Killer on the Phone is nevertheless a solidly put together production, benefiting in particular from a lush Stelvio Cipriani score and attractive cinematography from Aristide Massaccessi.

De Martino tries to inject a bit of style into proceedings, but his contributions are more hit and miss. The slow-motion lyrical flashback scenes as Eleanor recovers her previously repressed memories whilst under the influence of a truth drug are a bit over the top in that post Elvira Madigan way. The director is on surer footing when it comes to such staples of the form as the fetishisation of weaponry and black gloves; the close-ups of eyes; the shock zooms and, yes, plenty of product placement for Justerini & Brooks.

The use of the theatrical milieu is also worth noting, Eleanor being an actress by profession. This allows for some confusion over reality versus role-play, as the boundaries between her dramatic work and her traumatic psychodrama become blurred; despite currently being in preparation for a production of Lady Godiva she recites Lady MacBeth's famous murder speech, potentially hinting that she's not as innocent in the affair as appears on the surface.

The theatre space provides the location for an effective finale that sees 'the curtain descend, everything end' or 'bring the house down' in an almost literal way for at least one of the dramatis personae; to say more would spoil things.

I Familiari delle vittime non saranno avvertiti / Crime Boss / New Mafia Boss

Directed by the underrated Alberto De Martino this is one of those Italian crime films that followed in the wake of The Godfather's international success, though its pace and dynamics are perhaps more reminiscent of classic Hollywood gangster films like Little Caesar, insofar as it deals with the ascendancy of a 'proletarian' gangster rather than with the power struggles of a well-established family in the crime aristocracy.

Unlike the 1930s films, however, there's no censorship or other requirement to present the protagonist's subsequently inevitable and thereby tragic fall. Instead, as with the Corleone family in The Godfather he can be better understood as succeeding by one set of criteria (business) and failing by another (personal).

We open with Antonio Mancuso (Anonio Sabato) getting permission from the local Don to leave Sicily for Milan, away from the possibilities that he sees as defining his future: starvation or being torn apart by lupara blasts.


The country mouse in the city?

On arrival in Milan, Antonio is given a high-profile job by Turi Petralia: the assassination of Loretto Abondano. It has a personal aspect as well, with Abondano being responsible for the murder of Antonio's father Vito many years ago. The situation is complicated by the fact that Vito was reputedly a traitor – a fact Turi had hoped to exploit by disposing of Antonio once the job is done.


The killer coming with a smile on his face

But Antonio is not the country bumpkin that he has appeared – “I know what you think Turi: I'm young, I've got no friends, I'm a country hick. Nevertheless, I'm no shit. I got the picture. I took some precautions and here I am” – and surprises Petralia.


The minions waiting in a spaghetti western configuration

Rather than killing Petralia, Antonio leaves him alive and indebted, declining a bundle of money in favour of his agreed-upon fee. It is all, as both men agree, strictly a matter of business.

Antonio next contacts his brother, Nicola, who has hitherto been a moderately successful pimp with “a stable of six or seven” in and hatches a plan: they secretly switch a consignment of narcotics from Godfather Don Vincenzo's men, let the replacement consignment be captured by the police and then offer to retrieve the original – i.e. the only one anyone else is aware of – in exchange for place in his family.

The daring plan succeeds – here we can forgive the skirting over the obvious plot holes as part and parcel of the 90 minute genre formula movie, especially since Vincenzo quickly surmises what has really happened – with the two men soon developing a close relationship, almost father-son like at times. (“You know something? I was like you when I was young” “I'd like to be like you. What do I have to do?”)

Unfortunately Vincenzo soon proves to not quite be the man he once was, showing signs of weakness and megalomania that can only re-ignite Antonio's ambition, especially when fuelled by the scheming of the ex-Don's daughter, Vincenzo's niece the beautiful Monica (Paola Tedesco).

Given the various locations within and outwith Italy – Palermo, Rome, Milan and Hamburg – and the presence of Savalas in the guest-star role, Mob Boss clearly had a reasonable budget.

Antonio Sabato again seems more comfortable playing a bad guy than a hero. If we perhaps engage with his character in more of a detached, observational manner we also prefer him to most of the other mafioso presented insofar as he at least has vestiges of a code of honour about him, being committed to his family's reputation and well-being and against the indiscriminate killing of civilians who have not chosen the gangster's life, as seen when one unfortunate is thrown out of a speeding car: “You shithead!” “Why? Are you afraid of killing?” “I only kill on commission or in self defence.”

The most significant scene in this regard is probably that of the family's reunion dinner where over complaints about Nicola's occupation – “a common pimp – I'd rather he was a killer or a thief. Even if he ended up in jail at least he'd have some self-respect,” remarks his wife – and a delightfully spaghetti eating montage, De Martino places a folk-sounding theme complete with ocarina: if ever you want an image of old southern / Sicilian attitudes and habits transcending time and place this would be a contender.




Domestic life

It's also a scene which perhaps indicates how the character of Antonio might have played to the intended vernacular audience, as someone more “like us” than the others presented and thus more of an identification figure, however ambiguous, than he appears to outsiders such as myself.

This in turn also impart an air of uncertainty over how to interpret some of the earlier lost in the city antics. Does he express bemusement at the automatic door of the airport because he doesn't know any better or because he knows that he's being appraised by Turi's men? Are 'we' laughing at him, with him, or being suckered just like his diegetic watchers, with their evalaution that “He's a real peasant [...] nothing but a punk kid, a cafone”?

Savalas doesn't doesn't completely convince as the Godfather figure, especially when he's the only American actor in the cast. His character also seems inconsistently written at times, though his forgetting the “only business” mantra when seeking to position himself above the rest of the family and referring to “cosa mia” could also be read as a sign that he is losing touch.

Paola Tedesco provides some compensation by virtue of doing more than just providing eye candy and love interest in pursuing her character's own enigmatic agenda.

De Martino's direction of the chases, shoot-outs and brawls is competent rather than inspired. Normally this would be a weakness though here it functions to film's overall benefit, giving it a more balanced feel than is often the case with filone cinema.

Indeed, the most memorable sequence is a montage dealing with the aftermath of mob rub out, in which one of the losers is processed into soap and then sent back to his bemused boss, who is clearly at something of a loss over what to do.




Turi gets punched in the face

Elsewhere we also get some nice single-shot set pieces and cuts, like Turi's opening the door to dramatically receive a punch in the face from Antonio's fist coming unexpectedly into the frame, ot one of those camera move transitions between inside and outside worlds through the window itself.

Francesco De Masi's crime jazz score is decent but nothing particularly outstanding or memorable, with most of the cues – the eating scene excepted – being rather generic and not always ideally suited to the on-screen action.

The dubbing of the film, in accented English, causes an element of confusion at times, with Sicilian rather than Italian terms being left untranslated and an English conversation at a bar in one of the German-set scenes being butted into by Antonio on grounds of 'unexpectedly' hearing his Italian mother tongue.

[The film is available for download from Cinemageddon]

L' Assassino... è al telefono / The Killer Is on the Phone / Scenes from a Murder

Arriving back in Ostend after spending a few days working in London, acclaimed actress Eleanor (Anne Heywood) suffers a shock when she crosses paths with hitman Drasovic (Telly Savalas).


We open with the arrival of a ferry rather than a jet, though elsewhere Drasovic repeatedly reschedules a flight to London

The effect is to make her forget all that has happened in the last five years - neither that her home in Zune Street has long been demolished; nor that her fiance, Peter, was killed by Drasovic; nor her subsequent marriage to George.








The moment of recognition; a OAR presentation would undoubtedly help us appreciate the scene better here

But whereas Eleanor can't yet place where she has seen Drasovic before, he realises that she is an unforeseen loose that needs tying up before he returns to the job at hand, that of assassinating the man responsible for brokering a deal between oil producers and petrochemical companies.


A later moment of misrecognition as the assassin strikes at who he believes to be Eleanor; note the use of the screen between the two as an echo of the earlier images

The mystery, meanwhile, is whether someone amongst Eleanor's personal and professional circle might have hired Drasovic all those years ago; certainly there is no shortage of suspects:

Dr Chandler: I'd like to try a shot of Pentathol

Thomas, Eleanor's stage partner: Isn't that dangerous

Dorothy, Eleanor's sister and potentially jealous understudy: Only if you're afraid of the truth

Dr Chandler: Is anybody here afraid of it?

George: Of course not.

Cue potentially telling exchange of glances between those present.

The film has a literate, self-reflexive script, even referencing Pirandello at one point (“one shot of pentathol and his philosophy [of truth] goes down the drain,” according to Thomas) but is ultimately too conventional to succeed as a Tenebre-style mise-en-abyme deconstruction of giallo conventions.




A fetishistic arrangement of watches conceals the real tools of the assassin's trade

There's no real prospect that Eleanor will emerge as the one who conspired to have Peter killed and that this explains her repressed memories, for instance.

While it can fairly be argued that this isn't its goal, as further demonstrated by the identity and motive of Drasovic's employer five years earlier, the film is also less successful than Puzzle as an amnesia themed giallo.

One thus gets the same impression as with Alberto De Martino’s other gialli, such as Man with the Icy Eyes and Blood Link: he certainly has an affinity for the genre and the capacity to come up with intriguing situations, but never quite manages to bring them to realization on screen to their full potential.

The characterisations of Eleanor and Drasovic are too straightforward (though the latter’s penchant for collecting model soldiers is a nice touch) while the mise-en-scene lacks the kind of enigmatic details to draw one in and reward careful or repeat viewings; there is nothing comparable to the musical clock in Tessari's film.

Yet if the one-note nature of Heywood and Savalas's characters largely restricts their performances to neurotic woman-in-peril and killer automaton cliche, it cannot be denied that both are effective, playing their roles as if to the manner born.

Moreover, this also creates that bit more space and purpose for the supporting cast, insofar as in addition to fulfilling the usual functions of suspects, red herrings and additional victims, somewhere amongst their number we know there must be the point of connection between the leads, grating each line or gesture that potential additional bit of gravitas.

The film was lensed by Aristide Massaccessi and, as such, looks good. Stelvio Cipriani’s mournful themes are another asset, as are his effective suspense cues and shock stingers.