Dir: Roberto Bianchi Montero
Star: Antonio Sabàto, Lucretia Love, Klaus Kinski, Van Johnson
a.k.a. Eye of the Spider

The English title makes it likely to be confused with another, unrelated Kinski movie made in 1971, Web of the Spider. Though it’s probably relevant that I spent half of this film coming up with an eight-legged version of that song from Rocky: “It’s the eye of the spider / It’s the thrill of the web / Rising up from a rosebush in the garden…” On the one hand, it’s not the film’s fault, considering the Stallone classic came out more than a decade later. However, it’s still telling to realize, I got more amusement out of coming up with arachnid-based parodies, than from… oh, I dunno… watching the damn movie.

For it’s a thoroughly pedestrian tale of revenge. Paul Valéry (Sabàto) is spring from a prison van by Prof. Orson Krüger (Johnson). He was the mastermind behind the diamond heist which put Paul in jail, after the rest of the gang betrayed both Valéry and Krüger, absconding with the loot instead. Orson wants to team up with Paul to get revenge, putting him through “plastic surgery” [really, removing the very bad make-up job previously applied to Sabàto!] and giving him a new identity as Frank Vogel. He is then sent, along with Krüger’s main squeeze, Gloria (Love), off on his mission.

Though it soon turns out that Valéry is his own man, not just the Prof’s attack-dog. That’s especially true where the leader of his former colleagues, Hans Fischer (Kinski), is concerned. Valéry’s fondness for acting first and thinking later, puts him at odds with his employer, who wants a more cautious and deliberate approach, and is keener on getting the loot than his revenge. Frankly, I’m with Paul: this film already has far more than its share of dawdling around, and anything which gets us to the meat of the vengeance is alright by me. If Orson had his way, we’d probably still be sitting around, thinking about how to move forward. I know revenge is a dish best served cold: however, Krüger seems to think that involves waiting until it’s past its sell-by date.

Not that Paul is necessarily much smarter. I mean, the first thing he does with his new face and secret identity… is call up one of his old pals and threaten him. So much for the element of surprise, eh? This does lead to an element of slight intrigue, as the gang are a bit confused, and have to deal with someone who is attempting to sell them photos of the man apparently targeting them. But, like just about everything else in the film, it’s depicted in a way which robs it of all tension and interest. Similarly, the relationship between Paul and Gloria is completely uninteresting. About the only sequence of note is the final fight between Paul and Hans, which takes place in a boathouse by the sea. It’s reasonably well-staged, and packs more of a wallop than everything else combined.

Sadly, that also includes Kinski in this case. It certainly doesn’t help that the English-language dubbing in the version I saw (on Amazon Prime) is particularly abysmal. He’s given an outrageous Italian accent for some reason, which completely buries his entire performance. Still, I guess it could have been worse. According to a comment on the IMDb, in the German-language dub, “his character is named ‘The Polack’ and given a dreadfully fake Polish accent”! Count your blessings… Oddly, the various promotional artworks also vary in his importance, the Italian poster choosing to omit him entirely. Or the German poster (above) has him painted in. Your choice…

I was somewhat impressed by the black-and-white flashbacks, which help illuminate what happened in the original robbery. And I was also not averse to the bleak ending, sudden though it was. [Something about “dig two graves,” would be appropriate] Otherwise? Generally, I aim to write about a thousand words per movie, and even in the films where Kinski isn’t present much, I can generally find enough to cover for that. This one, however, basically defeats me. I’m cutting my losses at around seven hundred, and calling it a night.