The Girl Who Knew Too Much

Nora Davis, an American tourist, arrives in Rome and immediately finds the woman she is staying with dead. She faints in the street and, coming round, sees a woman stabbed on the Spanish Steps. The next day there is no body, no blood, and nobody believes her. Nora reads crime novels, so what she saw is easily dismissed as imagination. The subject is not the murder but a witness not being believed. Nora saw something and nobody will accept it; she is expected to doubt her own eyes throughout. The form is regarded as the beginning of a genre. The gloved killer, the woman who witnesses, the murder that cannot be proved and the black and white image carrying the tension: this is the film cited as the first Italian giallo, and everything that followed comes out of it. Mario Bava both directs and shoots. The American version was altered: scenes were cut, comic passages added and the score replaced. The difference between the two versions is still debated, and the Italian one is darker. Letícia Román plays Nora and John Saxon the doctor. Who it is for: viewers curious about the origins of giallo and who like classical thrillers. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a modern horror tempo; the film is slow and shows almost no violence.