GIALLO SOURCE CODE [Deep Red, Crimes of the Black Cat, & Nothing Underneath]

Most fans of the Giallo are aware of Dario Argento's inclusion of the "Head Through Glass" shot in a number of his movies. The most famous is probably during the death of psychic Helga Ulmann (Macha Meril) in DEEP RED.

What isn't quite so widely known, though, is that Argento hardly has the corner on this supposedly quintessential "Argento shot". It actually crops up in the Giallo both *before* and *after* Argento made it his own. Two examples that came to mind this week are the lesser-seen 1972 Giallo THE CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT (aka, SETTE SCIALLI DI SETA GIALLA, directed by Sergio Pastore) and the heavily De Palma-influenced 1985 Giallo NOTHING UNDERNEATH (aka, SOTTO IL VESTITO NIENTE, directed by Carlo Vanzina).

In the case of CRIMES, I have to believe that Argento was at least *aware* of the shot when he planned his DEEP RED version, as there are definite visual similarities. The shot comes at the end of the film, when blind composer-slash-sleuth Anthony Steffen is confronted by the film's murderer, played by a car accident-scarred Sylva Koscina (she showed up in the cast of everything from SO SWEET, SO DEAD [also 1972] to Bava's LISA AND THE DEVIL [1973]).  

Koscina, about to murder Steffen in his apartment, is interrupted when the police burst in. Her only escape route is through one of his apartment windows:

On the abysmal Dagored DVD of CRIMES OF THE BLACK CAT, the quality of the image, as Koscina plunges hands- and face-first through the window, stutters and then changes dramatically, going from bad to worse. Notice the sudden difference (more orange) in the color from shot to shot. In CRIMES, the film ends on a freeze-frame of the broken glass before the credits start to roll (which may be one explanation for the change in image quality). 

In NOTHING UNDERNEATH, the "Head Through Glass" shot also ends the movie, also involves the reveal of the killer's identity, and also ends on a freeze-frame that leads to the end credits:

In addition to recalling DEEP RED and CRIMES, the scene here, shot in a slow motion that changes the fine texture of the film grain as the two women are plunged through the glass, also recalls the hyper slow motion used at the end of FOUR FLIES, when Mimsy Farmer's head is plunged through the windshield of her car.