There are stylish giallo thrillers—sleek, artful, suspenseful classics like Argento’s Deep Red or Sergio Martino’s Torso.
Then there are the gialli scraped from the bottom of an abandoned gelato cart, films stitched together with duct tape, confusion, and a killer who looks like an accountant trying to cosplay the Grim Reaper.
Death Carries a Cane is proudly, passionately the second kind.
Maurizio Pradeaux’s 1973 thriller is a giallo where the mystery is confusing, the killer is obvious, and characters make decisions so poor they might qualify as a public health hazard. The film has the audacity to juggle red herrings, dance academies, extortionists, voyeurism, twins, razors, and a protagonist with a limp—and still manages to be duller than an unsharpened cane tip.
But let’s do this. Let’s walk (slowly, limping) through the mess.
A Murder Witnessed Through Tourist Binoculars, Because Sure, Why Not
We open in Italy, where our heroine Kitty (played by the eternally concerned Nieves Navarro) uses tourist binoculars and accidentally witnesses a murder. It’s a classic giallo setup—in the same way that reheating lasagna for the third time is technically a meal.
Kitty frantically tries to buy more viewing time so she can watch the rest of the killing like she’s waiting for the next episode on Netflix, but alas, the killer escapes. What does she actually see?
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A building number
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A peanut vendor
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A cleaning woman
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And the killer wearing an outfit so generically “giallo murderer” he might’ve walked in from another film set
Honestly, this is about as much clarity as the movie ever achieves.
The Police: Not Invested, Not Impressed, Not Awake
Kitty drags her limping boyfriend Alberto to the cops, and the inspector reacts to her story with the enthusiasm of a man being forced to watch paint dry. Alberto’s limp makes him a suspect, because in this film if you walk funny, you might as well confess to homicide.
The inspector later visits Kitty and Alberto to let them know the woman Kitty saw murdered has been found. This is framed as an exciting revelation. It is not.
The Killer Begins Murdering Anyone Who Has Spoken for More Than Five Minutes
Next, the adorable peanut vendor is stalked and murdered—slashed by a razor and dragged through his window by a cane-wielding arm. It’s meant to be terrifying. It plays like slapstick. He’s killed for blackmailing the killer, which proves the cardinal rule of giallo:
If you know anything, you’re going to die. And if you know nothing, someone will kill you just to be safe.
Then the cleaning woman tries to extort Alberto (because why not) but gets killed before she can even deposit the money. In this film, extortion is a guaranteed fatal career move, right next to “carnival worker” and “any blonde in an Italian horror movie.”
The Dance Academy Connection, aka The Film Suddenly Remembers It Needs a Plot
Alberto and Kitty eventually discover that the murdered women attended the same dance academy. This is presented as a shocking twist, even though the movie itself introduced a dancer 45 minutes earlier and immediately forgot about her.
One dancer, Magda, returns to her hotel room and is smothered by a killer hiding under her bed. It’s a classic moment—except for the fact that the killer appears to be lying under the bed like a bored cat waiting for someone to walk by.
We later learn that all the murdered dancers auditioned for Marco—the killer—who murdered each woman because…
they weren’t good enough dancers.
This motive is so magnificently stupid it circles back around to being entertaining. Marco really said:
“Bad pirouette? Death.”
Kitty Pretends to Be a Prostitute to Catch the Killer, So Naturally the Commissioner Shows Up
Giallo heroines are notorious for bad ideas, but Kitty outdoes herself. Alberto convinces her to dress as a hooker to lure the killer. She stands on the street offering $100, which is not how prostitution generally works, but this film isn’t here to portray realism.
She spots a man with a cane, excitedly signals the police, and they rush in only to discover…
It’s the police commissioner.
This scene is everything giallo fans love:
absurd, pointless, embarrassing for everyone involved, and somehow still not the funniest thing in the movie.
After this disaster, the police lose all patience and start taking the investigation seriously, which is frankly unrealistic.
Enter: A Random Woman Who Knows Too Much (Because She Read the Script)
A woman appears to share crucial information about the killer—but only after showing up at the wrong house, recognizing a photograph, and running away screaming like she saw her tax bill.
Predictably, the killer pops up in her backseat (as all murderers do in 70s thrillers), grabs her with the cane, and kills her. She didn’t even get a name. Poor thing.
The Dance Academy Break-In: Where Everyone Forgets How Doors Work
Kitty and Alberto break into the academy at night with the help of a student who apparently has nothing better to do. Inside, they find files that show a familiar face, but before they can process anything, the killer locks Alberto and the student in a closet.
The killer then chases Kitty into a greenhouse, which is the most giallo place possible to stage a final confrontation. It’s visually appealing but about as threatening as being chased by an angry florist.
The inspector shows up and shoots the killer just in time, which means he had only one job and, shockingly, accomplished it.
The Big Reveal: It’s Marco, the Dance Critic From Hell
Marco, the mild-mannered friend of Alberto, is the killer. His motive?
He didn’t like the dancers’ auditions.
That’s it.
Not blackmail.
Not revenge.
Not mental illness.
Just artistic snobbery taken to homicidal extremes.
He also uses a cane only to throw off suspicion, which makes the title Death Carries a Cane technically true but dramatically useless.
Lidia, Marco’s wife (and twin sister of Silvia), explains everything to Alberto at the end because no one else could be bothered.
Performances: Everyone Looks As Confused As the Audience
Robert Hoffmann as Alberto delivers every line like he’s reading it off a grocery list.
Nieves Navarro is charming but spends most of the movie running, screaming, or fighting off bad costume decisions.
Luciano Rossi is delightfully unhinged, because he was genetically engineered to star in gialli.
Simón Andreu plays Marco with the energy of a man who forgot he was in a movie until halfway through filming.
The peanut vendor was a standout. RIP.
Final Verdict: A Giallo for Fans Who Love Trash—and I Mean That Affectionately
Death Carries a Cane is not a good movie.
It’s not even a decent movie.
But it is a wildly entertaining parade of nonsense:
binocular voyeurism, cane imprint clues, dance academy conspiracies, evil twins, accidental prostitution, backseat murder ambushes, peanut vendor tragedy, and a killer whose motive is basically:
“I don’t like your arabesque. Prepare to die.”
It’s messy, cheap, illogical, and often hilarious.
A perfect storm of giallo incompetence.
And honestly?
Cinema is richer because disasters like this exist.
Just… don’t walk with a cane while watching it. The police might shoot you.
