The Fifth Cord (1971) is a visually striking giallo thriller from Italy. While there’s plenty of fashionable outfits and stylish interior decorating, there’s an emphasis on figures placed against colossal pieces of architecture, or the use of shadows against lit windows and lamplight reflected by glass. During one sequence where petals drift through the frame as it across characters in a car, I thought, “This is like something out of The Conformist.” And what do you know, it’s the same cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro! All of this visual panache is also served by a great Ennio Morricone score (especially the lounge-y title credit sequence, which feels like a melancholy cocktail hour) and by the lead performance from Franco Nero as a booze-hound investigator reporter, swanning about with a nice head of hair and a rumpled trench-coat, downing glasses (and even full bottles) of J & B Scotch Whiskey every ten minutes. After a fancy nightclub party, some of the attendees are being murdered one by one, a leather glove left at the scene of the crime with another finger of the glove cut off. Can Franco Nero find out who the killer is before the five victims are claimed? How are all the targets connected? Can Nero win back his glamorous lover (Silvia Monti) even as he rolls around with a new girlfriend (Pamela Tiffin)? This is lurid, violent, sleazy, and reiterates a certain level of outdated masculinity, particularly the chaotic Nero who oscillates between red-eyed intensity and laidback smirk. The crime plot is overly complicated though not as whacked-out as some other giallo. There’s a vaguely Alan J. Pakula vibe to everything with shades of Klute with close-up shots of reel-to-reel recorders and modernist glass-paned offices. Streamed on Tubi in remastered quality. Recommended.
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