THE FIFTH CORD (1971) Blu-ray
Director: Luigi Bazzoni
Arrow Video USA

Italian man of action Franco Nero becomes embroiled in a deadly web of giallo madness in THE FIFTH CORD, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

While walking home from a NewYear's Eve party, young Australian teacher John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia, TOP SENSATION) is badly beaten and left for dead. Alcoholic reporter Andrea Bild (Nero), who had been at the same party of language teachers at the Grove International School through his on-again-off-again ex Helen (Silvia Monti, A LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN), discovers that he has even more incidental ties to the story when the police inspector (Wolfgang Preiss, MILL OF STONE WOMEN) reveals that Lubbock's attack was witnessed by a pair of young lovers: underage prostitute Giulia (Agostina Belli, SCREAM OF THE DEMON LOVER) and race card river Walter (Luciano Bartoli, TORSO), the ne'er-do-well of his mistress Lu (Pamela Tiffin, NO ONE WILL NOTICE YOU'RE NAKED). Indeed, Bild's loose association with the party guests becomes a point of interest to the inspector when Sophia (Rossella Falk, SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS) is murdered and a pattern emerges with a black glove found near her body as with Lubbock (who survived and has been getting strange calls that have him wondering if the killer will return to finish the job). Bild harasses Helen to find out more about her friends, discovering that Lubbock had carried the torch for Isabel (Ira von Fürstenberg, FIVE DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON) who had fallen for his best friend Edouard (Edmund Purdom, PIECES). A more intriguing lead comes up in Sophia's stuffy husband Bini (Renato Romano, DEATH LAID AN EGG) who is seen in the company of Walter and his girlfriend and has powerful connections. When Bild's editor Traversi (Guido Alberti, CONTRABAND) takes him off the story and the man is murdered after an explosive confrontation, Bild is not the only one who believes that someone is taking advantage of the murders for their own ends; however, it is he who is the prime suspect. In spite of pressure from the paper and the police, Bild carries on with his investigation and discovers plenty of clandestine perversity but nothing to connect the victims to one another or even to the loved one he suspects may be the next victim.

While many gialli were purported to be based on novels by non-existent authors – while some of these literary sources actually were giallo stories published in magazines – THE FIFTH CORD is an actual adaptation of Scottish mystery writer David McDonald Devine's titular novel. Produced in the aftermath of Dario Argento's game-changing giallo THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE by producer Manolo Bolognini striving to create another hit in the vein of DJANGO with Nero, THE FIFTH CORD is on the higher end of production as far as giallo spin-offs, boasting a cast who all have prior giallo and horror credits but were better known in Italy for more mainstream films, high production values, and a script that favors sustained suspense and plotting over strung-together murder set-pieces. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (THE LAST EMPEROR) was not brought over from the Argento film but had already been part of a sort of filmmaking commune with Nero, and director Luigi Bazzoni along with his cinematographer-turned-director brother Camillo (SHADOWS UNSEEN). While the stalking and killing sequences are not drawn out for visuals or exploitation, the film possesses a striking visual style in Storaro's use of color and lighting – more akin to his work on THE CONFORMIST than the Argento film – and the compositional use of the symmetrical shapes and patterns of the modern architecture of Rome's EUR district to frame and overshadow the characters (particularly those victimized by power like Bild or those whose lives are in mortal peril) feels organic to the story rather than an affectation. The solution to the mystery, dependent on an astrology factoid, is a bit of a letdown but the path getting there is quite diverting. Although Nero dubs himself on the familiar English dub track, the availability here of the Italian track with English subtitle translation is a major revelation for the ways it differs from the English dub. During the killer's opening monologue, the English has him gloating in anticipation of the sensations of killing while the Italian dub has him announcing that he will kill five people in the New Year and that he has picked victims for whom death would be a liberation, which has the viewer questioning just who will be the victim and ruminating on why the killer might feel he is freeing them. This also has the effect of making the audience question whether or not a particular killing was indeed committed to implicate Bild or throw him off the track. The mystery might even be more diverting for the first time viewer if viewed in Italian. Ennio Morricone provides a score that encompasses the usual dissonant stalk and slash cues, a pipe organ bit recycled from his score for NIGHTMARE CASTLE, and one of his truly masterful lounge pieces "Giocoso, Giocoso" underscoring the main titles.

Not released until 1975 in the United States by Scotia American (SUDDEN FURY), THE FIFTH CORD was hard to see outside the bootleg circuit apart from a typically overpriced, non-anamorphic Japanese DVD until Blue Underground's 2006 DVD which included an interview with Nero and Storaro. That anamorphic transfer restored some of the luster of Storaro's lighting and the film's restrained color palette, but Arrow's 2K restoration of the original camera negative is like seeing the film anew with the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer cementing comparisons of Storaro's photography here to his acclaimed work on Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST (if only Blu-rays of that film looked this good). Apart from speckling during the Italian title sequence – available along with the English title sequence via seamless branching – the palette includes warm skintones, J&B liquor bottle labels, and firelight contrasted with cool blues, the saturation of which varies from night to early dawn in the exteriors while the fine lines and patterns of the omnipresent modern architecture that frames and oppresses the protagonist and the potential victims are in high relief. Italian and English LPCM 1.0 mono tracks are offered along with English subtitles for the Italian track and SDH subtitles for the English.

The film features a new audio commentary by film historian Travis Crawford who previously provided commentary for Arrow's George Romero set. He provides plenty of background but does so in a manner suggesting he could have used some scripting, needing to go more against the grain of the diverting visuals rather than jumping in and out of discussions to point things out onscreen. He describes Nero's journalist as "one of the great drunks in cinema," discusses the film's visual motifs and distancing techniques that provide physical and psychological barriers to Bild's understanding, as well as discussing the film's relatively straightforward approach to the giallo in the context of Bazzoni's earlier THE POSSESSED and even more accomplished later giallo FOOTPRINTS. Although he compares Bazzoni as an underappreciated Italian genre director to Francesco Barilli (PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK), he does not seem to be aware that the two were friends (which Bazzoni fans will learn from the concurrently released Arrow Blu-ray of THE POSSESSED).

"Lines and Shadows" (17:49) is a video essay by critic Rachael Nisbet who provides some background on the Devine source novel but focuses primarily in the piece on arguing that the visual style of Bazzoni and Storaro was less decorative than in more setpiece-driven gialli, being deployed to underline the genre's ambivalence about modernity sub-textually. "Whisky Giallore" (28:22) is an interview with author and critic Michael Mackenzie who puts the film in the context of the post-BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE prolific 1971 output, noting the ways in which it embodies a giallo checklist while remaining relatively faithful to the source novel apart from moving it from Scotland to Italy and "giallo-fying" it with some touches. He does note that the film changes the gender of the killer while keeping their sexual motive and object of obsession. "Black Day for Nero" (23:33) is a new interview with actor Nero who describes THE FIFTH CORD as a film made "with great class," recalling his beginnings with the Bazzonis and Storaro on the short UN DELITTO, his success with DJANGO, getting Jack Warner to tear up his five-film contract so he could return to Italy to make MAN, PRIDE, AND VENGEANCE, and his subsequent career.

In "The Rhythm Section" (21:27), film editor Eugenio Alabiso (THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH) singles out THE FIFTH CORD among the many gialli he edited for Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, and others. He notes that it belies the popular notion that gialli were a byproduct of the mainstream made unprofessionally and hastily for little money; however, he is also thankful that all of these films are being reassessed critically in ways they were not upon release. There is a bit more filler in this one like the interviews on the Arrow Blu-ray of THE POSSESSED. An intriguing extra is an additional deleted sequence (2:37), a montage found stored with the original camera negatives. While Arrow could only guess where it was intended to be placed in the film, the montage would seem to have been considered redundant with an earlier one employed to provide a look at the private lives of the main characters. The disc also contains virtually identical Italian and English theatrical trailers (3:03 each), and an image gallery (3:20). Not provided for review were the reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Haunt Love, and the illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kat Ellinger and Peter Jilmstad included with the first pressing. (Eric Cotenas)

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