In Lisbon Interpol agent Alistair MacAndrew is murdered while investigating drug smuggling. Interpol sends agent Michael Laurence (Anthony Steffen) to identify the body and accompany it back to England. In Lisbon Michael meets an international team of agents. The team members are Darnell (Romy) from France, DuValliere (Julian Ugarte) of Canada, Jacobs (Joan Borras) from Berlin, Olalia (Raf Baldassarre) from Venezuela, Van Erik (Aolfonso de la Vega) from Afghanistan and Inspector Albert (Antonio Pica) from Lisbon.
Michael would rather stay in Portugal to find out who killed his colleague and friend but he is instructed to return home. While packing Michael gets a cryptic note to meet someone in the bar of his hotel. The man is Darnell, the international agent from France. He tells Michael that he can get him the name of the killer and to meet him outside the airport. Michael pretends to get on the plane and instead meets Darnell. Before Michael can learn anything Darnell is shot and killed. Michael manages to escape.
As Michael investigates Alistair’s death he ends up embroiled in more intrigue and murder. When henchmen are not trying to kill him a mysterious gloved man is killing any witness the Michael tries to talk to. As he slowly pieces things together he hears that a drug smuggling gang is responsible for his friend’s death and to solve his friend’s murder he must follow the drugs and a big drug king pin named Costa (Eduardo Fajardo) while dodging the Portuguese Police .
“The Killer with a Thousand Eyes” AKA “Los mil ojos del asesino” AKA “On the Edge” was released in 1973 and was directed by Juan Bosch. It is a crime thriller and a Spanish Italian giallo. The film is a sort of hybrid of the giallo and euro crime thriller style.
There are quite a number of deaths in the film. Most of them are not part of the mystery but are henchmen and crooks that get mowed down by machine guns that Michael manages to get a hold of when the bad guys try to corner him. Even the ones that are part of the investigation are mostly witnesses. There is no psychotic killer here just a drug dealer getting rid of loose ends.
The music score was quite interesting and something that gialli are noted for. More than once I found myself humming along to the soundtrack. The title is also cool with your basic giallo flair. It’s not clear if the title really means anything but I suspect that it is a stylistic way of saying that the killer knows everything that Michael is doing and in some cases is a step or two ahead of him.
Other than the title and the music score there really isn’t anything here that screams giallo. It’s a good film with a nice twist at the end. There are plenty of fist fights, a car chase and even a shootout near the end that was cool. For the most part the action is nonstop. It was interesting to watch and to try to figure out whom the killer was but it’s more for those that love crime thrillers.