#marta may

Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro (Eyeball, 1975)

Costume designer: Adriana Spadaro

Directed by Umberto Lenzi

Written by Felix Tusell and Umberto Lenzi

Music by Bruno Nicolai

Country: Italy

Language: Italian

Running Time:

CAST

Martine Brochard as Paulette Stone

John Richardson as Mark Burton

Ines Pellegrini as Naiba Levin

Mirta Miller as Lisa Sanders

Daniele Vargas as Robby Alvarado

Andrés Mejuto as Inspector Tudela

George Rigaud as Bronson

Silvia Solar as Gail Alvarado

Raf Baldassarre as Martinez

José María Blanco as Inspector Lara

Marta May as Alma Burton

John Bartha as Mr. Hamilton

Olga Pehar as Mrs. Randall

Verónica Miriel as Jenny Hamilton

Richard Kolin as Mr. Randall

Rina Mascetti as Hospital Nurse

Fulvio Mingozzi as Policeman

Francesco Narducci as Receptionist at Hotel Presidente

Carolyn De Fonseca as Gail Alvarado

Laura Trotter as Murder Victim at Castle

(Rather than screengrab I elected to use the lobby card reproductions from the recent UK blu-ray release. They are kind of fun, I think.)

Eyeball is a hilariously trashy giallo. Giallo being defined on this day by me as Italian genre movies characterised by stylish sadism, sexual fetishism, ridiculous plot contortions and usually sporting an unwarrantedly fine soundtrack. (Other definitions are available by other people on other days.) Whether the hilarity and the trashiness of Eyeball are intentional is unlikely, but it’s their presence which provides the movie’s salvation, salvaging Eyeball from an unpleasant and, worse, unentertaining, mix of tedium and obnoxiousness.

A tour bus to Italy containing a disparate group of people from the same American town (where apparently everyone speaks fluent Italian like a native) become the target for a series of savage stabbings perpetrated by a maniac (mostly) clad in a red pac-a-mac. Oh, and during the prolonged session of frenzied stabbing the crimson plastic clad killer also likes to take out an eye...ball. Hence the title. Italy is a lively country but even there murder is frowned upon, and Andrés Mejuto is entertainingly brusque as Inspector Tudela, a man seemingly whittled from burnished leather who is racing against the clock to solve the crime before he retires to catch “trouts”, or succumbs to skin cancer.

For all its sleaze and gore Eyeball is at heart a  mystery; usually part of the fun of a mystery would be trying to identify the murderer and their motive. In a normal movie written by a normal person this would depend on picking up on clues in the script and subtle hints in the performances. Eyeball is a giallo, though, and so considers adhering to logic and realism as party pooping in the extreme. During Eyeball you can still have a lot of fun conjecturing about the killer and their motive, but you might as well just take a wild guess, because like the victim’s eyes the solution is out there. Much to Inspector Tudela’s leathery dismay Eyeball may be light on “trouts” but it’s very heavy on the red herrings.

After all, what possible reason could there be for a killer to target a bus full of American tourists, besides extreme xenophobia? There are suspects galore from the tour guide who likes laughing at his own practical jokes like a rapist in a prison movie as the camera zooms in on his face, to Mark Burton (John Richardson), our typically blandly handsome protagonist, who likes to explain his job in promotion to young women via the illustrative example of those free toys in cereal.  Or is it John’s mistress, Paulette Stone  (Martine Brochard), who has crossed her legs to him since discovering his wife is ill? Or is it John’s wife, Alma Burton (Marta May) who is not where she should be and is apparently a bit mental? Or is it even one of the apparently few people on earth who haven’t a working knowledge of John’s genitals? The domineering lesbian photographer? Her unhappy partner? The priest with the picture of himself and some kids (uh-oh, spaghetti-o!) hidden in his Bible? What about that guy who runs to the top of the steps who looks like an explosion in a Disco Factory? (Unhappily he’s only onscreen for a few seconds; he’s great, but (SPOILER) it isn’t him). Practically everyone on the bus likes standing over sleeping people with a straight razor or touching young women inappropriately when their wife is out of sight. To be fair it was the ‘70s, so both those things were probably considered a bit of “cheeky fun”. The quirkiness of the characters and the impressively nuts plot are Eyeball’s greatest strengths, keeping things interesting even when it seems the director has dozed off.