To see this Italian fotobusta for THE COUCH is like seeing it through new eyes. To audiences in America, it was a dark, psychological drama; however, when viewed in an Italian framework such as this, it is obviously a giallo—and a film whose own B&W atmospheric aggression is somewhat in advance of Bava’s reputedly seminal THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, which was released in the same year. (As I've noted before, the real template for the Bava film appears to be the tongue-in-cheek Miss Marple mystery MURDER SHE SAID, first released in September 1961.) Indeed, when considered as a giallo, THE COUCH stands out as prototypical of the 1960s-1970s gialli on several counts: it was one of the first films to posit a serial killer as the main protagonist, portrayed as an individual of great personal charm and noted for his fetishistic use of a specific weapon (an ice pick). The Italian title translates as "I'll Kill at 7:00," a reference to one of the killer's promises to the police, and also his great alibi in that he's known to be keeping an appointment with his psychiatrist at that particular hour and so cannot be out elsewhere committing a murder. As a title of murderous intent and fetishistic planning, it prefigures other giallo titles such as YOU WILL DIE AT MIDNIGHT (1986) and THE KILLER RESERVED NINE SEATS (1974)—not to mention how it sets up the echoing of the number seven in such titles as SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS and THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES (both 1972) and SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE (1973). One of the most thrilling sequences in THE COUCH also takes place on a vacant floor in a hospital where the darkened space throbs with strobing light from an outside neon sign, a motif that Mario Bava would adopt to equally disturbing effect in both THE GIRL WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964).
In short, this item shows us that the history of the Italian giallo did not evolve solely from Italian films, but also from foreign films in Italian.
If you've never seen THE COUCH, you're missing an important, too-often-overlooked chapter in the evolution of the horror thriller. The original script by Robert Bloch (which he later filled-out into a nifty novelization) is quintessential Bloch—dark, sick, and served up with an avuncular twinkle.
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