Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

The Fifth Cord Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 14, 2019

One of the cool byproducts of Arrow Video’s almost relentless mining of the giallo genre for releases is that they’ve repeatedly highlighted directors who perhaps never quite rose to the ranks of, say, a Mario Bava or a Dario Argento. Luigi Bazzoni probably belongs firmly in that category, and in fact as is gotten into in some of the supplements accompanying another recent Arrow release of a film co-directed by Bazzoni, The Possessed, Bazzoni tends not to be overly recognized for any of his directorial efforts (co or otherwise), whether or not they happen to be in the giallo genre. The Possessed featured some incredibly striking black and white cinematography by Leonida Barboni, and in one sign of Bazzoni’s perhaps underappreciated acumen as a director (and one assumes at least one of the hirers of various crew members), one of The Fifth Cord’s most memorable features is its striking color cinematography, courtesy of multiple Academy Award winner Vittorio Storaro (The Conformist, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Apocalypse Now*, Reds*, The Last Emperor*), who just happens to be Bazzoni’s cousin.

On the back cover of this release Arrow specifically cites The Bird With the Crystal Plumage as having inspired a whole host of imitators, and I guess the implication is that The Fifth Cord is one of them, though I think many would be hard pressed to draw too many parallels between the properties, other than perhaps how both of them exploit a highly unique and even provocative visual style. The Fifth Cord’s narrative is considerably less easy to follow than The Bird With the Crystal Plumage’s is, to the point that even the expected “Moishe the Explainer” moment in this film may not completely satisfy each and every inquiring mind.

The stylistic flourishes running rampant throughout The Fifth Cord are in evidence from pretty much the get go, with an opening quasi- hallucinatory sequence that hints at a killer’s skewed perspective through a fish eyed lens “point of view” shot. There’s kind of an almost subliminal foreshadowing of much more contemporary efforts like Eyes Wide Shut, in more ways than one as it turns out. The film’s more traditional narrative style quickly takes over, though, with the introduction of hard drinking reporter Andre Bild (Franco Nero), who is evidently experiencing relationship problems with Helene (Silvia Monti).

An evocatively staged attack of an Australian teacher John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia) occurs, and that attack in turn soon reveals that a number of characters have interlocking relationships. Soon enough there’s an actual murder victim, instead of just a badly injured attack victim, and Bild ultimately makes the connection that the party where he briefly met with Helene may hold a clue to everything. There’s a veritable glut of supporting characters here played by an international cast that includes Edmund Purdom (of all people), Pamela Tiffin and even (Princess) Ira von Fürstenberg. The problem some may have with The Fifth Cord is that there are too many supporting characters, with Bild chasing down false leads and other attempts at misdirection to the point that the chief focus of the film becomes more and more opaque as it goes along. (It seems apparent that Bazzoni and editor Eugenio Alabiso may have realized they were juggling too many characters for the average audience member to keep track of, and so the film repeatedly uses a conceit where a character is mentioned, and then there's a brief "identifying" shot of that character, ostensibly as a kind of "flowchart" for folks.)

If there are some undeniable story hurdles to overcome in The Fifth Cord, the film has an incredible style courtesy of Bazzoni and Storaro. As is discussed in a really interesting supplement included on this release, the repeated use of lines and shadows seems to suggest that Bild and the other characters are in an urban prison of sorts. Kind of interestingly, at least within the context of this being a giallo, is the fact that The Fifth Cord doesn’t really rely on graphic, gruesome murders. Instead there’s an unsettling aspect of psychological unease suffusing the film, as perhaps best exemplified by a great sequence positing a supposedly helpless child who’s more or less trapped in a house with the presumed killer.

Note: *Storaro won Academy Awards for all three of the asterisked films.

The Fifth Cord Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Fifth Cord is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:

The Fifth Cord / Giornata nera per l'ariete is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with Italian and English mono audio. Scanning and restoration work was completed at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The original 35mm camera negative ws scanned in 2K resolution on a pin- registered Arriscan. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, picture instability and other instances of film wear were repaired or removed through a combination of digital restoration tools and techniques. The mono Italian and English language tracks were remastered from the original sound negatives. The audio synch will appear slightly loose against the picture, due to the fact that the dialogue was recorded entirely in post- production, as per the production standards of the period.

The film was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master at R3Store Studios, London.

All materials used in this restoration were accessed from Surf Film.

This is another great looking transfer of a fairly obscure film from Arrow, one with a well resolved and very natural and organic looking grain field, and one which ably supports the almost lurid palette that's frequently on display. The stylistic conceits of the film can mean that individual shots look (intentionally) soft, even diffuse, and so detail and especially fine detail levels can vary pretty substantially. There's also a prevalence of pretty dark (as in dimly lit) material throughout the film, where grain can spike noticeably and again fine detail levels are at least minimally affected. But there's a really appealing appearance to this transfer, with nicely suffused colors (albeit with still a few density fluctuations), and in close-ups where stylistic tweaks don't intrude, really commendable fine detail levels. The restoration gauntlet has removed any major signs of age related wear and tear, but eagle eyed videophiles may still spot some minor occurrences of specks, dirt and the like.

The Fifth Cord Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Fifth Cord features nice sounding Italian and English LPCM Mono tracks, though my advice is to stick with the Italian, even if it doesn't really address the "loose synch" issue mentioned above any better than the English language track does. I'm not sure who handled the voice casting for the English language track, but to my ears the voices sounded pretty unnatural and some of them are distinctly different "types" than on the Italian track. The film boasts a kind of "pop"-py score from Ennio Morricone, and that sounds fine throughout. Dialogue is rendered cleanly, though with that certain boxy quality that seems to afflict a lot of Italian post-dubbed features.

The Fifth Cord Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary by Travis Crawford is a typically informative track from this analyst, and provides some interesting biographical background on the arguably largely unknown Bazzoni.


• Lines and Shadows (1080p; 17:49) is a really interesting analysis of some of the film's visual tropes by critic Racael Nisbet.


• Whisky Giallore (1080p; 28:22) features Michael Mackenzie's thoughts on the film.


• Black Day for Nero (1080p; 23:33) is a 2018 interview with Franco Nero.


• The Rhythm Section (1080p; 21:27) is an interesting interview with editor Eugenio Alabiso.


• Deleted Sequence (1080p; 2:37) is described as a "montage" that was found with other film elements but which doesn't seem to have ever been a part of any known version of The Fifth Cord. It's a bunch of kind of random images of things like people walking and kids frolicking in a park, with underscore.


• Italian Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:03)


• English Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:03)


• Image Gallery (1080p; 3:20) features images courtesy of Peter Jilmstad.

As they tend to do, Arrow has also included a nicely appointed insert booklet.

The Fifth Cord Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Fifth Cord could have used a little clearer exposition in terms of some of its story elements, but the film is so strong in the style category that what might have been unmanageable hurdles are at least partially surmountable. The film has some great performances, and there's a slightly smarmy, even unseemly, subtext here that may appeal to those with more jaded sensibilities. Technical merits are first rate, Arrow has assembled their typically impressive slate of supplements, and The Fifth Cord comes Recommended.