Who Saw Her Die? Starts with one of the most disturbing openings I have ever seen, nestled in the beautiful snow filled French mountains you see a young girl enjoying herself with her nanny and her sledge. From out of the trees looms a figure of a woman with a veil covering her face. Grabbing the young girl, the woman proceeds to smash her skull in with a stone before burying her rather carelessly under the snow. Moving forward 20 years, we are teleported to Venice in the 1970's; and the arrival of Roberta (Nicoletta Elmi) who has come to stay with her father Franco (George Lazenby) is about to cause history to repeat itself.
The movie is a product of the great Aldo Lado the mastermind behind Night Train Murders, and The Short Night Of The Glass Dolls, Lado is not necessarily the best know of the Italian directors especially to the casual Italian movie viewer, but familiar or not you'd certainly agree Lado's movies have a certain style about them. Here Lado shows a side of… more »

Who Saw Her Die? Starts with one of the most disturbing openings I have ever seen, nestled in the beautiful snow filled French mountains you see a young girl enjoying herself with her nanny and her sledge. From out of the trees looms a figure of a woman with a veil covering her face. Grabbing the young girl, the woman proceeds to smash her skull in with a stone before burying her rather carelessly under the snow. Moving forward 20 years, we are teleported to Venice in the 1970's; and the arrival of Roberta (Nicoletta Elmi) who has come to stay with her father Franco (George Lazenby) is about to cause history to repeat itself.
The movie is a product of the great Aldo Lado the mastermind behind Night Train Murders, and The Short Night Of The Glass Dolls, Lado is not necessarily the best know of the Italian directors especially to the casual Italian movie viewer, but familiar or not you'd certainly agree Lado's movies have a certain style about them. Here Lado shows a side of Venice that the Italian tourist board would not like you to see, looking dowdy and dirty you can almost smell the dirty Venetian water, add to this a vision of darkness, rain, fog, and cloud cover that you do not think of when Venice enters your mind. Everything about Lado's outlook of Venice is dark and sinister and not the image you get with movies like The Talented Mr. Ripley or Nicholas Roeg's Don't Look Now even though this is hardly sun filled; on the subject of the Roeg masterpiece I'd go as far as to say that I suspect that Roeg took a little inspiration from this movie as you can easily spot similarities between the two movies, while Roeg painted a harsh image of Venice, Lado's version is far more extreme and explicit. Now don't get me wrong, Lado's vision is not all dark, there are some most beautiful scenes in the movie, for those with a passion for travel, history, and architecture this movie will make you want to visit Venice even more, what is carefully delivered however is the thought "be careful what you cannot see".
I have now seen Who Saw Her Die? A dozen times, and reviewed it now for the third time; what I love about the picture is that there is a wonderful power that the movie has, forget the horrible story of a child killer, and the further sideline of a depraved group of perverts; the movies great talent is that by the time I watch the movie again I have completely forgotten who the killer is, making Who Saw Her Die? A movie that you can watch again, and again. How many movies do you know that feel fresh with each repeated watching? And how many movies grow in power with repeated viewings? I won't deny the first time I saw this movie I could take it or leave it, but now it makes its way to the top of my list for all-time favourite movies. From its gruelling story, its impressive visual delight by its director Aldo Lado, onto its rather impressive score by Ennio Morricone, this is an all round winner.
Shameless have again gone out of their way to preserve the movie well, it's in my view a far superior print to the US Anchor Bay edition released some years ago, and greatly improved by the additional seconds of footage, and English subtitles over a couple of scenes previously un-dubbed and without text translation. At last I get to see what it is the creepy kids are singing about in an Italian variant of "Ring A Roses".
As you progress through the movie there are a few things I had not noticed before, aided by what appears to be better framing. The movie boasts a 2.0 soundtrack, and a frame ratio of 2.35:1.
There are some trailers on the disc including The Designated Victim a release due on the 8th of September and a movie that has never been seen in the UK before.