The Fiend

Luigi Zampa's film opens with a reporter low down the order at an evening paper. One day letters start arriving, and the man writing them turns out to be a serial killer. The reporter treats this not as information the police need but as the material that will save his career, and keeps the correspondence going. The real subject is not the murders but the story itself, and the point at which journalism stops following an event and starts feeding it. Zampa shows it without moralising, through the ordinary calculations of the trade. Johnny Dorelli plays the reporter, with Sydne Rome beside him. The tension builds slowly, though where it is heading is felt early.