General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

The Cat o' Nine Tails

The Cat o' Nine Tails (Il gatto a nove code) is a 1971 Italian giallo (Italian murder-mystery thriller genre with stylized violence) thriller written and directed by Dario Argento, in which a blind retired journalist and a young reporter investigate a break-in at a genetics institute and a string of murders linked to research into the criminal mind. It is the second entry in Argento's so-called "Animal Trilogy", between The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971), thrillers united by the animals in their titles and by circuitous plots with eccentric characters and elaborate killings.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title / year	Il gatto a nove code, Italy 1971; Italian release 12 February 1971²
Director and writer	Dario Argento (screenplay); producer Salvatore Argento¹^•³
Place in the Animal Trilogy	Second of three, after The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and before Four Flies on Grey Velvet¹
Lead cast	Karl Malden as Franco Arno, a blind retired reporter and puzzle maker; James Franciscus as reporter Carlo Giordani; with Catherine Spaak and Cinzia De Carolis¹^•⁴
Plot premise	A break-in at the Terzi Institute, a genetic research facility, followed by murders possibly motivated by a chromosomal abnormality¹
Music	Score by Ennio Morricone, including the lullaby theme "Ninna Nanna in Blu"¹
Later reception	81% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (21 reviews); 4K UHD restoration released by Arrow Video in 2021³^•⁵

Spoilers

Plot and premise

The story begins when Franco Arno (Karl Malden), a blind, retired newspaper reporter who designs crossword puzzles and cares for his young niece Lori (Cinzia De Carolis), overhears a conversation in a parked car that sounds like blackmail aimed at a scientist. A few hours later, the Terzi Institute, a prestigious genetic research facility, is infiltrated by an intruder for reasons that are not immediately clear. Arno begins his own investigation, joining forces with a junior journalist, Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus), and the pair find themselves untangling a mystery that soon encompasses a number of savage killings, committed by strangling, knifing, and even on a commuter train.¹

The suspects the two men encounter, including Catherine Spaak as the daughter of the institute's chief, are described as deeply damaged and dysfunctional, and an actual chromosomal abnormality potentially lies behind the motivation of the killer. The film thus frames its pathological killer as a genetic anomaly rather than through the psychoanalytic framing common to the genre, a shift the critic Gary Needham has read as moving the film toward scientific rationalization.¹^•⁶

The title's reference to the multi-headed whip is generally taken to concern the nine or so leads the investigators pursue, most of which turn out to be false trails and red herrings.³ The film distinguishes itself within the trilogy by splitting hero duties between two men; the chemistry between Malden and Franciscus gives it an accessibility and warmth that contrasts with the pessimistic story.¹

Production and context

The commercial success of Argento's debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), allowed a higher-caliber cast here, with two American stars and a stable of character actors from Italy and Germany.¹ That debut had kick-started a wave of imitators, with around 30 gialli reaching Italian cinemas in 1971 alone, including this film.⁷ In the United States, the film was marketed as "nine times more suspenseful" than its predecessor.⁵

Release dates varied widely by territory: Italy on 12 February 1971, the United Kingdom on 6 June 1971, West Germany on 15 July 1971, France on 9 August 1971, and a long tail of later releases extending into the 1970s and beyond.² Rotten Tomatoes lists the original US theatrical release as May 21, 1971, with a runtime of 1 hour 52 minutes.³

Music and style

Ennio Morricone, who scored all three Animal Trilogy films, provides one of his sweetest lullaby themes, "Ninna Nanna in Blu", amid discordant suspense music. The juxtaposition of lovely pop music with nerve-jangling experimental jazz was an approach he took to his giallo scores of the period.¹ Reviewers have highlighted the night-time cinematography and widescreen compositions, and the railway terminus killing of Dr. Calabresi near the start of the film has been called one of the most bizarre and beautifully choreographed murder scenes of Argento's career.⁸

Compared with the garish color of Argento's later work, the film is darker in palette, taking place largely in shadows, with blues and greens and occasional pops of red; it was shot in the original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.⁵ Critics have also noted its more conventional mystery structure, with Argento tamping down his more extreme stylistic instincts.³

Reception and legacy

The film's standing has shifted over time. The scholar Gary Needham, writing in Kinoeye in 2002, called it "the least inspiring of Argento's Italian-made gialli" and argued that its mediocrity as an Argento product lay in its formal relationship with American cinematic models of detection and investigation, which it emulates structurally rather than subverts.⁶ Argento himself has dismissed the film on occasion in interviews, and in a 2021 interview for the Arrow release he did not hide his antipathy toward it, particularly the American stylings he brought to it; he has admitted those concerns receded once the film proved another box-office hit.⁹^•⁸

Public opinion has since grown more positive. Rotten Tomatoes records an 81% Tomatometer from 21 critics, with a critics' consensus calling it "a solidly entertaining Argento outing elevated by a well-chosen cast and the director's distinctive visual style", against a 54% audience score.³ Retrospective critics describe it as the overlooked middle child of the Animal Trilogy, less celebrated than the debut or Deep Red (1975), but praised for its detective duo, its staging, and its Morricone score.⁴^•⁸

The film has also been kept in circulation by home video. Arrow Video upgraded its earlier Blu-ray with a 4K UHD edition in 2021, sourced from a 4K restoration by L'Immagine Ritrovata scanned from a 2-perf Technicolor negative, with commentaries by the critics Alan Jones and Kim Newman, interviews, and an alternate original ending among the extras.⁵^•¹⁰

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026