Jallo on the shelf. Shooting his film in the heyday of galleau, Alberto De Martino tried to catch two birds with one stone: on the one hand, to get into the rolled commercial rut of a thriller in Italian, on the other hand, to come up with a new, unusual move so that his picture in this rut did not get stuck. Judging by the fact that “Killer ... on the phone” today is rarely mentioned among the most prominent representatives of the genre, such a focus, as in the vast majority of cases, could not be pulled. The tape remained in the memory of fans of the Jallo as a funny episode from the "golden era" - nothing more. However, as an example of the intrigue characteristic of the genre of “twisting” to the degree of absurdity, too.
Actress Eleanor Laurent returns from England to her native Bruges. Suddenly, in the port, she meets a man whose face she associates with something terrible from the past, and loses consciousness. When she wakes up, she doesn’t remember anything that has happened for the past five years, and is horrified to learn that her beloved husband, Peter, is dead and married to another man. Trying to find her memory, Eleanor begins to go back days and years, meeting more and more people. But someone is always following her, and this someone clearly wants her dead.
The idea of investigating a murder committed many years ago by a man who has lost his memory is not that original. But De Martino tried to give her a flavor due to the fact that his character does not seek to solve the crime – she is simply looking for her memory and trying to avoid death, which threatens her for unknown reasons. At the same time, the identity of the killer is not hidden by the authors: brutal Serb Ranko performed by Teddy Savalas really follows the unfortunate one on his heels, spitting on his next mission to eliminate a certain political leader. But why and why the assassin is pursuing the actress will remain a mystery until the very end.
Of course, the Jallo would not be a Jallo if it were not for the chain of corpses strung on each other. From the fact that in the “Killer ... on the phone” the viewer knows who is to blame for the appearance of another dead person, not so much changes. In addition, from the sacramental “gloves – throat – knife” De Martino does not refuse. And the defenseless female neck will inevitably meet with a sharp blade, preserving the detective intrigue. Let us know who, but we do not know why. And while this “why” is revealed to Eleanor, the tangle will have time to get confused to the most incredible degree.
Another thing is that the degree of absurdity and tension of intrigue at some point will begin to prevail so much that solving the crossword puzzle ceases to be of any interest. It is easier to immediately look into the answers to find out the true culprit of the crime five years ago and the cause of the strange amnesia of the main character. In fact, the authors of the film are so entangled in their constructions that they also preferred not to unravel the plot tied to a dead knot, but to cut it in the traditions of the American thriller. With a lonely house on the outskirts, a murderer roaming in the dark with a huge knife, and a victim running stupidly through dark rooms. In this turmoil, it is no longer up to solving the mysteries that De Martino and the company carefully posed the entire film. And the mystery of Peter's death is revealed. As if she was not the main driving force of intrigue.
Such carelessness with the denouement clearly did not contribute to the popularity of the film. As well as the choice for the lead role of Anne Heywood, who played Eleanor with such a cold detachment that completely cut off the opportunity to empathize with her heroine. Rather, sympathy causes vainly trying to kill her Ranko - what a man is not lucky with the efforts of writers! However, placing “Killer... on the phone” in the collection of Jallo fans should not prevent anything. "Gloves - throat - knife" available? So what else would you want?