Below is an excerpt from the chapter in my Pamela Tiffin filmography book, Pamela Tiffin: Hollywood to Rome, 1961-1974, focusing on what I think was her best Italian motion picture the giallo Giornata nera per l’Ariete (1971) AKA The Fifth Cord co-starring Franco Nero.
In late 1971 Pamela Tiffin finally broke free from the commedia all’Italiana and ventured into the thriller and western genres with her most popular co-star the extremely handsome Franco Nero, who was dubbed the Italian Steve McQueen. First up was arguably her best and slickest Italian movie the stylish giallo Giornata nera per l’Ariete (English translation Black Day for Aries), which received limited release in some English-speaking countries as Evil Fingers. Most U.S. fans know the movie, however, as The Fifth Cord which is the name of the novel by D.M. Devine the movie was based on. This title was used when released on DVD in 2006. It was the third movie directed by former documentary filmmaker Luigi Bazzoni. He, Nero, and the Director of Photography, Vittorio Storaro, were all good friends who had collaborated together on projects previously.
Pamela honestly admitted that she only did this movie for the hefty salary they paid her. It proved to be a win-win decision for her and the producers. She is once again part of an ensemble and just like with Harper, she holds her own and is a standout. Receiving sort of guest star billing, her name is listed last in the credits as “And Pamela Tiffin as Lu.”
Franco Nero had worked for producer Manolo Bolognini twice before in the westerns Django and Texas, Addio. But it was director Luigi Bazzoni who was the main reason the actor agreed to do this movie. The producer offered him Giornata near per I’Ariete and he did it because he liked Bolognini a lot and a chance to work with his buddies Bazzoni and Storaro again. “I owe a lot to Bazzoni,” Nero stated.
While shooting was commencing Nero was offered a part in the epic British film Pope Joan whose shooting schedule overlapped with Giornata Nera. The producers wanted him so much that they agreed to shoot his scenes on the weekend. For three straight weeks Nero hopped on a place from Rome to London early Saturday morning and returned late Sunday night to be back on the Giornata Nera set by Monday morning.
When asked if he knew Pamela before they began working together, the Italian superstar replied, “Yes, Pamela and I belonged to the same talent agency. My agent was Paola Petri and she was the wife of the great director Elio Petri who won an Oscar for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion. Sometimes I would go to their house and that is where I met Pamela who was extremely friendly and as we say in Italian “molto simpatica!”[ii]
Pamela Tiffin had just come off working with leading man Lando Buzzanca whom she disliked and caused her some grief. Asked if she was a bit guarded about doing the movie or working with him especially in the scenes where she had to bare some skin, Nero replied, “From my point Pamela seemed to like doing this movie. We didn’t talk much about what she did before. She was very professional and open to direction.”[iii]
In the movie, Franco Nero had three leading ladies—Sylvia Monti, Ira von Fürstenberg, and Pamela who only had scenes with Nero so she never met the other actresses on set. At the premiere opening, Tiffin tried to talk with Ira Fürstenberg. The competitive actress rudely ignored her to Tiffin’s bemusement. They would go on to appear again in the same movie, Los Amigos, but thankfully for Pamela there were in different scenes again and she did not have to work with the unfriendly actress.
Pamela says Giornata nera per l’Ariete holds up to this day because of the “impressive cinematography by Vittorio Storaro who captured the real Europe and not the Europe of tourists.”[iv] The locations chosen for the movie are not your typical homes, office buildings, or apartments. Exterior scenes at a hospital are shot on a large stone spiral staircase and Helene’s house is an ultra-modern, multi-level dwelling with floor to ceiling windows. As reviewer Stuart Galbraith IV wrote on the web site DVD Talk, “Storaro obviously sought out architecturally interesting locations for both exteriors and interiors where he could shoot the film’s characters against modernistic geometrical patterns and shapes.”
“The Fifth Chord is the story of an unbalanced man,” Storaro remarked in the DVD featurette Giornata Nera and went on to explain why he used contrasting light and shadows in relationship to the plot:
He lives an unbalanced life because of some psychological problems he had when he was young, which unfortunately have a negative effect on him. He hasn’t resolved them. He can only find satisfaction by carrying out actions that unfortunately come from a dark subconscious from a past that is unresolved. The battle between these two internal forces in a human being I represented with light and shadow. I was telling the story with a visual conflict to reflect the narrative elements.
Pamela picked up on Storaro’s technique while filming. She remarked, “During production, I noticed that Storaro lit our scenes the way Richard Avedon did during my modeling days. When I commented on this he froze and then said, ‘Tu sei molte intelligente!’”[v] No wonder Pamela looks so gorgeous in the movie. Storaro had the skill to shoot and light her to make sure she looked even more stunning than usual.
Giornata Nera per l’Ariete was released in Italy in 1971 and shortly thereafter throughout Europe including the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries where it was titled either Evil Fingers or The Fifth Cord. Despite her guest star billing, Pamela is billed second on the poster art and it featured her in a man’s shirt spread across the bed with her neck slashed. In the movie Franco Nero played a self-loathing, alcoholic disheveled reporter named Andrea Bild (an outsider who is the typical center of Italian gialli) who pines for his former lover Helene (Silvia Monti) even though he is now sleeping with gorgeous coed Lu Auer (Tiffin). His career is on the slide due to his drinking and what his editor calls his “crazy nonconformist ideas.” An inebriated Andrea leaves a New Year’s Eve party where one of the guests named John Lubbock (Maurizio Bonuglia) is attacked under a bridge. He is saved by racecar driver Walter Auer (Luciano Baroli), who is Lu’s brother, and his quasi-girlfriend Giulia (Agostina Belli), a hooker. At the party, a dejected Lubbock had watched forlornly as the beautiful Isabel (Ira von Fürstenberg) danced and kissed his older colleague Eduoard Vermont (Edmund Purdom).
The next day Andrea, assigned to the story by his editor, tries to visit Lubbock in the hospital but he is denied entry. Guilia also rebuffs him refusing to talk about the attack. He then goes to Helene, who was at the celebration that night, and she fills him in on John’s character and his love for Isabel that is not returned. The following week another guest at the party, the crippled unpleasant wife (Rossella Falk) of Dr. Richard Bini (Renato Romano), is terrorized and brutally murdered in their home. It is learned that her husband was summoned from the house by a phony emergency called in by the killer. Andrea is surprised to hear that the good doctor is glad to be rid of her.
Soon all the New Year’s Eve revelers are suspects, but the police inspector (Wolfgang Preiss) has a special eye on Andrea as more and more evidence points to the reporter with each additional murder of a party guest plus the knifing of Andrea’s editor in the park. The lone clue left at each scene of the crime is a single black glove. The fingers are cut out based on what number murder victim they are. Andrea realizes the killer is framing him for the crimes. His investigation intensifies as he becomes desperate to prove his innocence. As he gets closer to the truth, he begins getting phone calls from the killer threatening him. He suspicion shifts from one of remaining partiers to the next, and even to Lu who is acting mysteriously and disappears for a time only to resurface in a short black wig. After he learns from Walter that the first attack had nothing to do with the subsequent murders and was perpetrated by Guilia’s perverted father, Andrea thinks the killer is Dr. Bini, who paid to watch Walter and Giulia have sex in front of strangers. The reporter threatens to publish the whole sordid story in another newspaper.
That night Andrea remembers that Walter mentioned that all the murders happened on a Tuesday and the attack on Lubbock was on a Monday. After confirming, Andrea consults an astrology book and learns that Tuesday is a lucky day for people born under the sign of Aries. This leads him to the killer who is about to strike against Helene. However, she is out of the country. A trick call sends her babysitter to the airport, leaving her vulnerable young son Tony alone. Helene learns this when calling and frantically instructs Tony to lock all the windows and doors. The killer, however, is already inside. This is the movie’s most harrowing moments as the killer chases the boy around the house. The boy becomes trapped in a small hallway with only light from a window he can’t reach. His blood-curdling screams and yelling for his Mama are spine-tingling, as the madman reaches towards his neck. Will Andrea get there in time to save the boy and reveal the murderer?
Pamela’s first scene as Lu is when she emerges from Andrea’s bathroom in a robe New Year’s Day morning. She bemoans that a drunken Andrea took hours to come home and when he did “he was in no shape to do anything.” Lu acts comfortable with her casual relationship with the reporter whose machismo does not let him feel the same for her exploits. She even calls herself his “part-time mistress and not the maid” when he tries to get her to make him breakfast. When she leaves town for a few days, the note she leaves gives him permission to get laid “as you know it doesn’t bother me.”
Lu pops up briefly as the passenger in a red sports car driven by a handsome young man, as Andrea watches them drive off. It then quickly cuts to Andrea returning home finding Lu lying naked on her stomach in his bed. Storaro shoots and lights Pamela exquisitely in this scene. It is arguably the best she ever looked on film as a blonde. Andrea smacks Lu across the face when she tells him she has been home studying for a history exam. Accusing her of being a liar and a whore who will jump into any sports car, an angered Lu returns the insults. She tells him that it belongs to her brother Walter and that Andrea hasn’t gotten anything right since he started playing detective. Her temperament however quickly softens when Andrea leaves. He returns contrite and to his horror finds Lu dangling off the bed with blood dripping down her neck. It turns out to be a prank and a relieved Andrea begins playfully chasing Lu around the apartment as they fall onto the bed together.
Lu shows up one more time wearing a short black wig that is never quite explained. She has news that she getting married to man who wants children. Though she acted the liberated young woman, deep down she desired the typical family life with a husband and knew Andrea could not give that to her. When she doesn’t get any type of reaction from Andrea, she tells him a woman named Isabel called and that she needs to see him urgently in her hotel room. Lu drives Andrea there and he discovers her drowned in the bathtub. Lu provides Andrea an alibi the next day. Andrea asks her why she lied to the police inspector and Lu replies, matter-of-factly, “I wanted to give you a farewell present” as she drives off to start her new life without him.
Chapter continues in:
