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Hi, I'm Torstein from Cinema Terror and today I will be talking about Mario Bava's 1963
masterpiece The Girl Who Knew Too Much, also known as The Evil Eye in the United States.
This is by many considered to be the very first Giallo film ever created, and what a
start the violent thriller genre had with this!
Mario Bava has been compared to Alfred Hitchcock before, and this is the film were he was the
closest in style, creating a stunning piece of a film that only becomes greater the more
you watch it.
The film was done after Bava had a six months off period from making movies and he was actually
to be point of considering retirement from directing new films, instead concentrating
only on doing work in the special effects departments.
Thankfully, he was convinced to give directing another go and not only would the Italian
giallo genre be totally different if he hadn't, but the entire horror genre as we know it
would not have become the same.
The movie is absolutely gorgeous and Bava gives it his all in this as well as saying
goodbye to the black and white format as he would only do movies in color after this.
The cast, consisting of the beautiful Leticia Roman and the tough guy John Saxon also give
great performances.
Saxon by the way though he was making an art movie before arriving in Rome, and even if
the production was not what he was expecting, it's hard to argue today that The Girl Who
Knew Too Much is not fantastic art.
Bava didn't have great recollections of the film in his later years, as it was his biggest
box office failure and he thought it had a poor story.
But the guy was sadly always *** his own work and you would have to dig incredible
deep to find him give any type of praise to his own remarkable body of work.
The technical work he provided on this is just superb and the movie is one of my favorites
of his entire catalogue.
There is a difference between the Italian and American cut as the American was re-edited
with some added comic elements and a new score.
I personally prefer the Italian cut, which we are watching the trailer of right now with
the fantastic theme song, sung by Adriano Celentano.
But regardless of which version you decide to buy, and you should definitely add this
to your collection, and I am happy to say that the movie is available on BluRay in both
regions, giving you no excuse to not pick it up and fall in love with this genre defining
movie of Italian cinema.