Opening in the snowy hills of France in 1968, it's not long
before Ennio Morricone's eerily memorable score seeps into the film (children
singing the title like a nursery rhyme), as we are plunged behind the veil
of a killer – a twisted psychopath whose modus operandi relates to red-haired
girls – in one of a series of effectively orchestrated scenes of stalking. At
these times, and indeed throughout the film, Aldo (Night Train Murders)
Lado's tight direction, Franco (Amityville 2) Di Giacomo's
gorgeous cinematography, Morricone's score, and Angelo Curi's skilled editing,
combine to create a sinister journey through the echoing waterways, canals,
stairways, rooftops, and breath-taking architecture of Venice.
Pre-dating the much more widely recognised Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg, 1973),
which tread similar ground a year later, Who Saw Her Die? details the
trauma suffered by sculptor Franco (a rail-thin George Lazenby) and his estranged
wife Elizabeth, after their red-haired daughter Roberta is taken by the veiled
woman in black and found dead in the waters of a fruit market. However, Massimo
D'Avack and Francesco Barilli's script (with help from Aldo Lado and
Ruediger Von Spihes) opts to pay more attention – in true giallo fashion –
to a civilian's (Franco) quest to find the killer when an ineffective
police force can't help (you'll find similar narrative approaches in the
likes of Dario Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage).
Click "READ MORE" below to continue the review and for more screenshots.
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