The Girl Who Knew Too Much

An American tourist obsessed with murder mysteries witnesses a killing on the Spanish Steps at night. Nobody believes her, and she becomes convinced she has stumbled onto a serial killer working through the alphabet.

Bava made what is now recognised as the first giallo, the foreign witness, the unreliable perception, the mystery structure, all here two years before Blood and Black Lace added the colour and the black gloves.

It is shot in luminous black and white, half thriller and half comedy, and Bava is plainly working out the grammar in real time.

The American version was recut with added comedy and a different score and released as The Evil Eye, and the Italian original is the one that matters.

Everything in the entire giallo cycle, and much of the slasher that followed, begins with this film.