In international film scholarship, the Italian term
giallo(“yellow”) has almost become synonymous with the word “thrilling” to designate the emergence in the 1960s and 1970s of a specific Italian film genre that combined the rational detection of a
whodunitnarrative with graphic horror and erotic conventions (Koven, 2007, 1-18, and Curti, 2022, pp. 1-10). The eruption of this film cycle was mainly due to the success of Mario Bava’s
La ragazza che sapeva troppo[
The Girl Who Knew Too Much] (1963),
Sei donne per l’assassino[
Blood and Black Lace] (1964) and of Dario Argento’s so-called ‘animal trilogy’:
L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo[
The Bird with Crystal Pumage] (1970),
Il gatto a nove code[
The Cat o’ Nine Tails] (1971) and
Quattro mosche di velluto grigio[
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Citation: Prono, Luca. "Italian giallo films". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 April 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19763, accessed 11 April 2025.]
