Original title: La tarantola dal ventre nero

In the wake of Dario Argento’s L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo/The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) there was a glut of gialli, that uniquely Italian mix of crime thriller and horror. They’d been popular in the 1960s thanks to the work of Mario Bava, notably in films like La ragazza che sapeva troppo/The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) and particularly 6 donne per l’assassino/Blood and Black Lace (1964) but the success of the Argento film revitalised the form and put production in overdrive. One of the best of the films to emerge from immediate aftermath of The Bird with the Crystal Plumage was Paolo Cavara’s marvellous Black Belly of the Tarantula, the title of which tips its hat to the animal imagery that Argento would use in the titles of his first three films (Bird was followed by Il gatto a nove code/The Cat O’Nine Tails (1971) and 4 mosche di velluto grigio/Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)) but which is otherwise very much its own film.

The plot is suitably complicated as all good gialli should be. Paolo Zani (Silvano Tranquilli) is furious when he learns that his wife Maria (Barbara Bouchet) has been seeing another man, bursting in her during a massage to confront her, and becomes the prime suspect when that night an intruder injects her with a chemical that leaves her paralyzed but conscious while she’s murdered. Inspector Tellini (Giancarlo Giannini) is assigned to the case though, as he admits to his wife Anna (Stefania Sandrelli), he no longer feels that he’s made for murder investigations, and his only real lead is a photograph of Maria being caressed by an unidentified man just out of shot. The killer strikes again, claiming a clothing store owner seemingly unconnected to Maria as Tellini doggedly pursues a trail of clues. They lead him to a scientist who shows him a toxin produced by a species of wasp that paralyzes tarantulas to lay eggs in the body. Laura (Claudine Auger), who owns the spa that Maria had been frequenting before her death, and Mario (Giancarlo Prete) are responsible for the photograph of Maria and while chasing Mario, Paolo falls to his death and Mario is then killed in a traffic accident. The police believe that Mario was the killer, but Tellini has his doubts and continues his investigations as the bodies continue to pile up.

To reveal more would be to do the film a disservice. The plot is complex, but it hangs together better than those in many gialli, which often relied on a degree of goodwill from the audience, hoping that they’ll just by into the many absurdities that the genre became known for. Black Belly of the Tarantula is a terrific and disquieting example of the form, vividly directed by Cavara. He makes the film simultaneously stylish and sadistic, haunting and disturbing, visually beautiful and thematically ugly. You’ll need to pay attention to keep up with all the twists and turns but it’s a film that more than amply rewards tour commitment.

There are moments of real horror here, gruesome little interludes that sit alongside more lyrical moments, like the bittersweet ending, all beautifully shot by Marcello Gatti, best known for his work on Gillo Pontecorvo’s ground-breaking La battaglia di Algeri/The Battle of Algiers (1966). The treat for the eyes is complemented by another treat for the ears from composer Ennio Morricone, who contributes another gorgeous score that helped to define what the 1970s strain of giallo should sound like until Goblin came along in 1975 for Argento’s Profondo rosso/Deep Red. It’s one of Morricone’s finest scores.

Performances are rarely an issue with gialli – you watch for the tried and trusted elements like the photography, the score, the sex, the violence and the often labyrinthine plots. But Cavara gets a terrific performance from Giannini as the world weary Tellini, no longer sure of himself or his calling and desperate to give it all up and move on. It’s a great turn, an unusually nuanced characterisation, but today the film’s marquee value comes from its trio of past or future Bond girls – Bouchet, Moneypenny in the disastrous unofficial Bond comedy Casino Royale (1967); Claudine Auger, Dominique Derval in Thunderball (1965); and Barbara Bach, playing Jenny here, later Major Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

Cavara had made his directorial debut with the controversial Mondo cane (1962) which had kickstarted another Italian exploitation genre, the “mondo” movie, documentary films that catalogued increasingly outlandish, unpleasant and often notably faked customs and practices often unfamiliar to western audiences. He’d co-directed that one with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi but soon cut a groove for himself as an idiosyncratic director who didn’t make many films but all of which were chock full of stylistic flourishes all his own. His second and final giallo for example, …e tanta paura/Plot of Fear (1976), features unexpected animated interludes from erotic animation specialist Gibba, previously the director of feature films Il nano e la strega/King Dick (1973) and Il racconto della giungla/Robinson Crusoe (1974). Black Belly of the Tarantula remains the better of his two gialli and is simply one of the very best of that early 70s explosion of violent Italian thrillers.