Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971): or, I Dont Know Who Killed Me

October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 18!

In the gorgeous, history-rich city of Prague, the body of American journalist Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) is found discovered by a crow, and shortly thereafter by a lowly street sweeper. The corpse is taken to the city morgue for storage and autopsy--a bit too soon, as we learn via voice-over/internal monologue that Gregory is in fact alive, and fully conscious of what's happening to him! Paralyzed and on the verge of accidental vivisection, the hapless Yank searches his confused, fragmented memory to reconstruct the events of the previous few days. It all has something to do with his girlfriend Mira (Barbara Bach), whose sudden disappearance led Gregory to investigate a series of similar disappearances, the horrible truth behind which is of course the cause of his predicament. Can he remember it all and regain his motor functions before he's sliced and diced in the operating theater?

Though it's packaged and presented as a giallo, director Aldo Lado's Short Night of Glass Dolls displays few of the characteristics we normally associate with the cinematic subgenre. (Though in point of fact, the gialli novels from which the genre takes its name had much more varied plots than just the old stalk-and-slash.) Instead of a black-gloved killer practicing baroque psychosexual violence, here we get an almost Poe-like "buried alive" (or "put in the fridge drawer alive") tale, with a conscious man undergoing mental torture as he helplessly awaits his doom. We also get conspiracy theory and sociopolitical allegory, as it turns out the girls of Prague are (spoiler!) being preyed upon by a kinky sex-cult made up of the rich, powerful, and elderly, somehow draining the life essence of the young to extend their lives and enhance their power. One wonders if Stanley Kubrick was a fan of the film.

Typical of the better giallos, though, is Lado's emphasis on style over plot--the director and cinematographer Giuseppe Ruzzolini deliver some wonderful visuals--a sequence in which Gregory finds himself in a pitch-black room where a white vase of flowers seems to float eerily toward him is a great one, and several shots of quivering chandeliers are also quite beautiful. As for horror, the cult's rituals are stylish and eerie, and there's a rather shocking scene where Gregory hallucinates his girlfriend's corpse in his apartment refrigerator--perhaps a parallel to his own icebox accomodations.

Short Night of Glass Dolls moves rather slowly, but it's beautiful to look at and has some neat ideas. And if you're particularly horrified by the "don't bury me I'm not dead!" idea, you'll be on the edge of your seat as Gregory sweats out his impending autopsy. (Though the dubbing/voice acting kind of undercuts the tension imo.) Those looking for a stylish, out-of-the-ordinary giallo will not be disappointed. 2.25 thumbs.

"Well, I guess it's true what they say about post-mortem muscle contractions. Better get a mop, Johnston."

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Guest Review: John Plumley on A DRAGONFLY FOR EACH CORPSE (1973)

Believe it or not, Parishioners, not EVERYONE has a blog. But Naschy-fan John Plumley didn't let that stop him from dusting off the keyboard and banging out a couple thousand words about his love for Jacinto's 1973 giallo! We think everyone should be given a chance to express their love of the Naschinator--after all, we can't all be blogging superstars, now can we?--and therefore we've given John the forum he needs to express his love in public. So parishioners and subjects, please give the man your attention, and your love, and read on!

NOTE: Guest Author John Plumley got the blogging bug after contributing this post to the Naschy Blogathon, and has started his own site. Check it out at http://atthemansionofmadness.blogspot.com!

A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1973): or, Paul Naschy brings the insect giallo thing to a whole new level.

First off, allow me to say thanks to the Duke of DVD and Vicar of VHS for organizing this Paul Naschy Blogathon and for allowing me to guest review a Paul Naschy film on mmmmmovies. It is an honor to (in a sense) graffiti my name onto the walls of the church of Mmmmmovies, a blog I consider to be an excellent source for low budget movie reviews that manage to be hilarious without tearing the films down at the same time. Also, it was great to come across a blog run by reviewers who I felt shared my enthusiasm for Paul Naschy. I’ve always wanted to write a movie review and I feel that this is a great place to start. I am a graduate student who finds a good deal of reprieve from the daily stresses of research and schoolwork by watching horror and thriller films.

The film begins on the streets of Milan with a lovely lounge cue suitable for the films era. We eventually come across some late night activity between 2 individuals on the street where it becomes obvious that they are involved in a drug deal and we get the sense that they are being watched. The buyer is then followed home by a silhouetted stalker carrying what appears to be a scimitar. It turns out that this buyer is a heroin abusing artist who lives with his grandparents and is about to become a victim for the killer. Our victim in this case is tripping balls after sampling the new merchandise and completely helpless when the killer proceeds to strike (although given his current state of Euphoria, I doubt he minds all that much). This results in much blood splatter over the artist’s own painting of a nude on the wall. You know, the type of perverse painting that is bound to cause a faceless, black gloved, scimitar wielding giallo killer to do what he or she does best and that’s to entertain the viewers with a grand death scene. More blood splatter ensues before a bitchin musical piece (that one may recall from another classic Paul Naschy film Human Beasts) begins to play over the intro credits.

An excellent opener just in the 1st four minutes and we’ve already received a good dose of what us giallo fans came for and we still haven’t gotten to Paul Naschy yet, the most likely reason most would go through great lengths to find such an obscure film.

During the following scene, what appears to be a frightened elderly man is being led to an interrogation room where we are finally introduced to a mustached, cigar chomping, tough as nails police inspector who goes by Paolo Scaporella, played by non-other than Paul Naschy. Paolo gets rough with him and grunts phrases like “This time I’ll send you to the judge alive and kicking,” and “the next time I catch you, I’ll split your head open.” This scene would be bound to induce screams and cheers in a movie theatre setting which would then be followed by laughter when we learn that the old man being interrogated is an exhibitionist who can’t help exhibiting himself in front of women and children???!! As always, Paul has made one hell of an intro by already delivering in spades (script wise and acting wise) in just the first 15 seconds of screen time.

You did not just crap your pants in my office!

After dealing with the exhibitionist, Paolo is sent to the commissioner who reveals to him the photo of victim #1 in this giallorrific piece of entertainment, and claims that the victim was a professional drug addict!!! I haven’t the slightest idea of what would qualify one as a professional drug addict, but I am impressed that the Milan police department considers drug addiction a profession. Anyways, we find out that he is not victim#1 but is a second victim with a similarity from a previous killing where a dragonfly was found on the corpse, this justifying the film’s title.

"Honey, we need to talk....It's either me, or your precious cigar."

The film then cuts to a night club that is full of that 70s euro night club atmosphere fans of the genre (like me) find very attractive and irresistible. We eventually come to a delicious looking red head, sitting alone at the bar complaining to the bartender about how not one guy has come near her all night. Listening to this you can’t help but wonder what type of night club this is, where a beautiful young lady is left alone all night at the bar. Well we learn she is actually a prostitute when the bartender alerts her that her pimp, who goes by Mohammed, will have an attack if she doesn’t bring the money in. The bartender then reveals that he too is in the business of girl managing and insists that she work for him. After an argument ensues, she leaves and is followed out of the club by Eduardo Calvo an actor I see frequently in Naschy’s films. Hmmm…..corrupt, immoral, and attractive. It should be obvious who the next victim for our dragonfly killer will be.

After walking out of the bar alone before much else happens she is murdered via a pointed umbrella to the stomach. The killer then proceeds to drop the rubber dragonfly calling card and we immediately cut to the commissioner and inspector Paolo contemplating the motives of the dragonfly killer. At this point it becomes apparent to the good inspector that the killer is targeting people with vices. This presents a conundrum, because if you think about it the killer is helping the police in a way by helping eliminate drugs and prostitution from the streets but it’s through means of a crime considered much more serious. You can’t help thinking Inspector Paolo would agree when he refers to the drug addicts and prostitutes the killer is targeting as “all garbage.” Nonetheless, the commissioner puts Paolo on the case and thus begins the investigation.

"If it’s a severed head, I'll be very upset."

We then go to Paolo’s apartment where he is playing the role of homemaker, cooking spaghetti for he and his wife while catchy childlike music (I heard before in the ending to Mario Bava’s Bay of Blood) is playing. This gives this setting a feeling of nostalgia and atmosphere worth dying for. Speaking of worth dying for, it is a great honor to introduce someone who I believe to be a much underappreciated actress. This being the actress playing Paolo’s wife Silvana, the fiery red headed, bootylicious, Italian horror eurohottie, Erika Blanc (Check out The Devil’s Nightmare, The Night Evelyn Came out of the Grave, and Kill Baby Kill, which was reviewed on this site previously by The Duke of DVD) looking űber attractive as always. The following conversation that ensues primarily has to do with a get together amongst all of Silvana’s high fashion friends. We are then bombarded with several names by Paolo’s wife, who are all most likely suspects to this 70’s style Paul Naschy edition game of CLUE.

This tender moment between police inspector and “best wife a man could ask for” breaks away to a 1st person perspective of someone breaking into an apartment. And …, wait a minute…., is that a Mick Jagger poster on the wall and are those naked youngsters passed out on the floor from too much drugs, sex, and rock n roll? "That’s right the immoral vice ridden type guaranteed to offend our dragonfly killer.” So it should come as no surprise when we are treated with a splendid axe murdering. This scene is made more horrific when one victim wakes up to what must be a terrifying sight of his beloved mates being hacked by our crazed axe wielding killer before being axed himself. After the deed is done, the killer doesn’t only leave a dragonfly for each corpse but mistakenly leaves behind a button. This being “a button of high craftsmanship and fashion” and “possibly from a woman’s coat” as stated by the inspector and police commissioner in an investigation scene that follows. This leads to the hypothesis that the killer could either be a woman or someone who wears a woman’s coat. Fortunately for the inspector, his wife Silvana knows a good deal of people who work in the designing world and is friends with a supposed well-known fashion designer who may have a colleague that could possibly know something about the button found at the murder scene.

Blancalicious!!!

Later, the film brings all the probable suspects into the same room for the get together with Paolo and Silvana and her high fashion friends she mentioned earlier. Among them are actors (Eduardo Calvo) seen earlier as a prostitute stalking night club frequenter who so happens to be a professor known as Sandro Campitelli, Angel Aranda, a few others I wasn’t able to identify, and Spanish horror regular Maria Kosti who is always a welcome presence as far as I’m concerned. We are able to get acquainted with all the faces of the suspects as they discuss the recent killings and the possible significance of the dragonflies. We learn from the professor that the dragonfly apparently represents ancient Chaldean rites where the dragonfly was a mark of punishment for anyone that was considered immoral. Assuming the killer to be following this ideology, members of this snobby meeting of the minds begin to point out that certain people present had better watch themselves. This suggesting that not all those present lead pure lifestyles and are capable of having the dragonfly badge sewed upon them. It is then pointed out by the professor that no layman could be familiar with such rites and because a professor is in no way a layman he unintentionally invokes teasing from one present that even he could be the killer. The teaser in this case happens to be Silvana’s homosexual fashion designer friend Vittorio Barucci who Inspector Paolo mentioned earlier as possibly knowing who the button, found at the murder scene might belong to. Later Vittorio finds out who makes the button but when Vittorio and Paolo attempt to visit this button designer at his apartment they find out from the landlord that this button designer recently committed suicide. This results in the button clue not yielding any kind of lead for the investigation even though it still ultimately ends up being indirectly related to the killer’s identity.

Somewhere later in the film, we come to very vintage style strip club with yet another scintillating red head on stage, sporting one of those waist bracelets that render her even more irresistible. In the crowd is the professor speaking to Mohammed. Recall that Mohammed was described as a pimp who tends to lose his cool when his girls aren’t making him enough money or as we find out later, pesky police inspectors who meddle in his affairs. In this scene, the professor is in the middle of a deal with Mohammed and is anxiously awaiting an expensive evening with the lovely maiden on stage. The professor demands that she be in a coffin and because of this he must pay even more money because as Mohammed puts it “Necrophilia is a very expensive vice.” As our lovely stage performer is in her room awaiting the good professor to come and collect his due services, she is brutally murdered in a surprisingly gory scene complete with a graphic hand severing. It should become apparent at this point that the professor seems to have a penchant for following prostitutes, with the killer usually showing up in his place. Hmmm, a red herring? Most likely.

While contemplating the identity of the killer, Paolo foolishly doubts a woman’s intuition, as the dragonfly count increases.

Seeing that the latest victim was another prostitute, inspector Paolo decides to question the girls working for Mohammed. Paolo eventually gets information from one girl that he can meet this Mohammed at some warehouse where the inspector later gets roughed up by Mohammed’s Nazi cronies as a warning to leave Mohammed alone. This provides the motive for what occurs in an infamous scene that follows. In the scene, inspector Paolo and his wife are sitting down to dinner, with Erika Blanc looking most attractive by sporting pigtails, a great tan, and a fabulous blue dress. In order to help alleviate all the stress Paolo is going through working on the dragonfly killer case and because it also happens to be his birthday, his wife has decided to have a present delivered for him to their apartment that just happens to be running late. When the present does arrive, Paolo opens it to find that his present is the severed head of Mohammed adorned with a dragonfly. It turns out that Silvana’s present was swiped out for an endearing gesture from the killer. I mean wasn’t it Mohammad who had Paolo beaten and battered recently.

"Check out my new gun flashlight!"

We eventually find out that professor Sandro Campitelli is in fact a red herring after all, when he contacts the killer by phone and tries to blackmail this person claiming to know his or her identity. Anyone knows that the dumbest thing you can do in this type of film is to attempt to blackmail the killer, a surefire way of becoming the next victim. After meeting up with the killer, who happens to be in a gorilla suit, at a creepy afterhours fairground setting, the professor does turn up dead, as do a number of other characters who claim to know a thing or two regarding the killer’s identity.

About three fourths of the way into the film when the J&B Scotch Whisky really starts to kick in, you’ll start to notice that this film is absolutely crazy! There’s so much going on. I mean characters keep turning up dead, you never see Paul Naschy’s inspector character without his cigar, The inspector’s wife gets involved in the investigation, and there are numerous subplots involving characters with double lives. One character who at first seemed pretty level headed, turns out to be a drug dealing transvestite who completely loses it while being pursued by the police, hops onto a rollercoaster ride (possibly to become a moving target??) and starts shooting at the police before being gunned down!!?? The plot is just a great head spinning mystery that ultimately leads to a killer climax (pun intended). A Dragonfly for each Corpse is how a great giallo should be and once again proves as the Vicar made a point of before in his review for The Hunchback at the Morgue that there isn’t anything Paul Naschy could not do. Yes, Paul Naschy pulled off a fine giallo (not just this one, but also 7 murders for a Scotland Yard, and Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll). I rate it 10 out of 10, 3+ thumbs, 6 out of 6 toxic barrels (points to anyone who can recognize what now defunct website that rating system belonged to), and 5 stars. Be sure to check it out.

Muchas gracias y adiós.

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The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion (1970), Or How No Ladies Are Above Suspicion In Italy!

A courier arrived recently at the Ducal estates (known locally as “That creepy-ass huge McMansion on the hill, you know, the one with the constant parade of freaks coming and going, oh and the weird, mute doorman with no ears, not to mention the super fat, sexually virile rich dude that lives there” by the local teens). I knew this to be a special delivery by the outward look of the courier alone: riding a creaky, ancient pennyfarthing bicycle, he was dressed in an elaborate peacock cloak and hunched his shoulders like a dog trying to pass a peach seed. His pock-marked face belied a sort of hideous retardation that at once frightened me and aroused my curiosity. Surely only the most powerful of men could control a freak such as this!

Turns out, he was sent by the Vicar (I should have known). In his leathery hand, he extended a parchment-wrapped parcel, sealed with the Vicar’s own glyph, which was pressed into wax made from the rendered fat of an uncut yak penis. I unwrapped the package as the the dullard knuckled his forehead in my direction, turned and sped off back down the way, a single honk from his bicycle horn echoing sonorously across the expanse of my front acreage.

Inside, a gem of a giallo, dealing with filthy blackmailing Italians, red-headed hotties, and more cane-knives than you can shake a stick at. Huzzah! I exclaimed. The Vicar does love me so.

Let us explore, shall we?

Our movie opens with the young Minou (played by the luscious Dagmar Lassander) taking a bubble bath. Sure, she may have the real-life name of a surly stevedore from Portsmouth, but make no mistake, this is Grade-A Euro-babe hawtness, 100% organic free-range teat, folks. We get no nudity this early, but with Dagmar we don’t need it (well, I told myself this while watching), as her figure is striking whether it’s covered by suds in a tub, or drenched in The Duke’s Own™ Man-Ranch.

But not above smoking in the bathtub, clearly.

As she bathes, Minou gives us a bit of inner monologue about how she’s going to stop drinking so much, and how she’s going to give up taking tranquilizers(!). Now, I can’t speak for all of you, but the thought of a drunk, tranquilized Eurohottie gets me all excited, like. All down in my nethers, even. It isn’t long before Minou violates her own covenant, dropping a horse pill down her gullet with a bourbon chaser. You see, she’s pining for her husband, Peter, who has been neglecting his marital duties of late due to a massive workload.

"Mirror mirror, on the wall, who's the least suspicious of them all?"

Minou decides to go out later that night for a nice walk by the pier a little ways from her house. Before we can shriek “Watch out, Minou, it’s a slimy Italian male!”, a slimy Italian male accosts her by riding up on a motorcycle to leer. Minou flees, but he pursues, using a short cane that is almost like a cudgel, except more, uh, cane-like. Quickly revealing a hidden blade (as all good canes and cudgels should have), he uses it to capture Minou and forces her to the ground. He straddles her, and she fears her worst fear (as well as the top fear by most of planet Earth) is about to be realized: unwanted, surprise insemination by a sleazy Italian.

That's one spicy meatball!

It seems Mr. Blackmailer (as he’s known in the credits, played with obvious aplomb by Simon Andreu) has other ideas than simply cavorting in her cinnabar crevice. He lets her know that her husband is not all he seems he is, and is indeed a murderer! He uses his cane-knife to cut open the top part of her dress, revealing little but hinting at a lot more. He assures her that he’ll leave her honor intact, for the moment, for eventually she’ll beg him to take her. With that, he leaves her be.

Winner of the "Awesome Things To Do With A Cane-Knife" Contest.

Minou rushes off to a nearby bar, where a couple of drunks watch her down roughly 20 beers while waiting on her husband Peter to arrive. A humorous side-note here, the camera sure does linger over shots of the strategically placed bottles, for a brand called “Carlsberg”, which is, it turns out, now the 4th largest beer brewery in the world, and popular most anywhere suds are are popular, minus parts of Arkansas and most of the Darfur region of the Sudan. Minou explains that a sexual deviant accosted her, leaving out the parts about Peter, choosing wisely to keep those to herself for a while yet.

Carlsberg: the J&B of Beers.

Once again, Peter rushes back to the office, leaving Minou to her own devices. She uses this time to hook up with her best friend Dominique (the yummy Nieves Navarro) to go clubbing. Much to my horror, Minou covers up her delicious red hair with a so-white-it’s-blond wig which, complete with the silk pantsuit she decides to wear, just screams “old lady” to me. She resembles Dolly Parton in Nine to Five, only without the ludicrously huge bazooms and backwoods-of-Kentucky accent.

"More suspicious *with* the wig, or without? Be honest, now."

After dancing like a couple of ‘shroomed-out hippies, they have a seat at a nearby table to gossip. Dominique casually mentions the death of an older gent, who happens to be the business associate of Minou’s husband. Later at home, Minou reads more about the death in the local paper. It seems the death was rather mysterious, the deceased having been killed by embolism of the kind divers get from surfacing too quickly. Peter comes home and Minou asks him about the dead fellow, and as it turns out Peter owed the man a considerable sum of money. Hmm, the plot thickens!

"I've told you before, honey. Never take the horse tranquilizers with no booze in your stomach."

The next day, Minou has a lunch date with Dominique. At a small cafe, Minou discusses her run-in with the shady, hairy Italian pervert. Dominique is entranced, exclaiming “Oh! I would love to be violated!” I guess I need to expand the Ducal B&B Promotional mailings. At any rate, the girls retire to Dominique’s house, where she wastes no time in getting the young Minou to leer at pornographic pictures, most all of them containing Dominique being rogered and groped by sweaty, hairy Italian poon-hounds. Minou happens upon a pic of a man pawing Dominique’s ample bosoms, and realizes it’s the blackmailer dude! Asking if she can have that one (Dominique doesn’t mind spreading the porn), Minou takes off without explaining why she’s suddenly acting funny.

"Why yes, I have time for a survey.... Oh, no, sorry, I am not in fact a lady above suspicion."

The next day, we see Peter at his office, and find out he’s involved with diving equipment, including pressurized tank construction! Hmm, mysterious death due to embolism... potentially deadly scuba stuffs.... nah, couldn’t be! Later that night, as Minou and Peter sleep, Mr. Blackmailer calls on the phone, talks to Minou and plays her a recording that is of Peter and his coworker, discussing the killing of the now-deceased guy he owed money to! Minou is suitably horrified, but still determined to protect Peter.

Minou heads to the blackmailer’s apartment. The place is really something, covered in plaster hands reaching from the walls, with a love-nest in the middle of the floor and weird demon statuary of the sort seen around the Vicar’s pantry. Minou tries to pay him off with $1000, but he just tosses it away. He informs her that his sole intent is to sex her up, but she’s gotta ask him for it. He threatens to go to the police with his recording when she recoils in horror at his hairy, sweat-covered body. Finally Minou relents, and spends a busy afternoon having the equivalent of a wet dog rubbed over her naked flesh, as the Italian blackmailer has his way with her. In the end, he gives her the audio tape, which she chunks into the nearby ocean when she leaves his apartment.

"What has seven hands and is dying for a blow job?"

Arriving back home, she finds Dominique hanging out with Peter. Since her excuse that she was with Dominique doesn’t hold much water now, Minou stumbles about under Peter’s harsh gaze until Dominique finally manages to cover for her. Later that night, still obsessing over her sexy-time, Minou once again hits the tranquilizers. Minou just can’t let go, reliving her nightmarish day over and over. We see more tidbits of her time with the blackmailer/rapist, including him donkey punching her in the face!

The next day while Peter is out at work, Mr. Rapist shows up at Minou’s apartment! He tells her the tape of Peter was a fake, and that all he wanted to do was have her submit to him. He shows her pictures that he somehow had taken while they were mid-coitus, and that she can’t tell Peter unless she wants the photos to come out into the open! Not knowing what to believe anymore, Minou turns to tranqs and alcohol as she spirals further down the rabbit hole.

Minou heads over to Dominique’s house, and it is revealed to us that Dominique is sleeping with Peter! He slips out the back door as Minou arrives at the front. She eventually confides in Dominique, confessing the whole thing. Dominique wants to help, so she helps Minou get together $20,000 in order to really well and truly buy off the blackmailer this time. Minou pawns some of her jewelry to make up some of the cash, then heads over to the rapist’s apartment. He’s having none of it, though! Giving her 3 days to once again submit to him, he lets her leave unmolested, this time.

"As you can see, we have a wide variety of gluepots available for your sniffing pleasure."

Dominique goes to Plan B: getting Minou to confess to Peter, which she does. Understandably, Peter is upset, but he calls in a favor with the local police commissioner, who arrives and takes statements. The party heads over to the rapist’s house, which turns out has been empty for at least a year. Minou really starts to come unglued at this point, and even contemplates suicide the next day while standing up on a high trolley station above the nearby bay.

"I'm sorry, Peter. You're neither hairy nor sweaty enough to arouse me anymore."

The rapist/blackmailer keeps taunting Minou, including showing up at her apartment late at night while a storm rages. He gives Minou a creepy Italian leer from outside a window while the rain pelts down. Screaming, Minou calls for Peter, but of course Mr. Poon-hound is long gone. Minou remembers her photo that she took from Dominique, but in looking for it she finds it’s gone. She talks Peter and the commish into going to Dominique’s flat, so she can confirm the existence of the photo. Dominique tells them she can’t recall giving any photo to Minou.

At this point, the writers of the movie are really trying to keep the viewer as confused as Minou. On one hand, we have Peter seemingly involved in a murder via decompression chamber, and on the other we have Mr. Rapist, who could have just invented the whole thing. We also have Dominique acting coy but seeming to know all that is going on with just a few glances or chance looks at Minou.

Everything comes to a head the next night, when Minou is home alone once again due to Peter having a business engagement. She hears a noise, goes to investigate, and finds a turtle has somehow gotten into her house. Suddenly, the lights go out, and she sees what she thinks is the rapist, holding his cane-knife! Only it turns out to be a creepy mannequin. As she’s staring at the mannequin, a hand reaches out from under a nearby curtain and grabs her leg! She hammers it with a nearby statue, and it lets go.

Out from under the curtain comes the rapist, of course. He retrieves his cane-knife and knocks Minou down, straddling her once again. He begins to make tiny incisions along her neck, all the while kissing her! Meanwhile, Peter realizes he left some important papers at home, so he rushes back, arriving just in time to see Mr. Rapist straddling his wife. Calm as a flat sea, Peter sets his briefcase down, pulls out a pistol, and shoots the blackmailer square in the back, killing him instantly!

**** spoilers beyond this point, I suggest you skip the next few paragraphs if you want to retain your innocence! ****

Minou awakens to find Peter about to make a phone call, instead of checking on her of course. Peter reveals that it was him all along, that yes indeed he murdered the business rival, but that wasn’t enough, he had to set up and elaborate web of lies that included having Minou murdered for insurance money. Only the guy he hired, Mr. Rapist Blackmailer, took his job too seriously and instead toyed with Minou when he was only supposed to kill her. Just as Peter is about to shoot Minou, the police rush in along with Dominique, and the commish guns down Peter!

Forbidden Photo of a Lady (Below a Suspicious Italian).

Minou is wheeled away to the hospital, her external wounds merely superficial, but her mental scarring understandably deep. Dominique explains to the commish that she had slowly put things together when she realized that Peter had taken out a large life insurance policy on Minou. We cut to a few days or perhaps weeks ahead, and Minou is leaving a psych ward, good as new. Dominique picks her up in a convertible, and the two drive off, with Dominique joking that she has some new pornographic pictures to show Minou. It is to laugh! The two drive off, screeching like drunken harpies. Fin.

**** end spoilers ****

"How dare you suspect my wife of anything. She's above that, sir!"

As gialli go, this one was actually pretty enjoyable. There wasn’t a whole lot of nudity, and all of the sex was pretty much done clothed, but what nudity existed was tastefully done. The storyline really kept me guessing along with Minou, but then I’m easily duped by movies so perhaps my illustrious readers would have had it figured out very early on. Some things are never really explained, like how did they set up the rapist’s apartment in order to make it seem like no one had been there for a year? Dominique’s having photos of the rapist were never quite explained either, I guess except for her promiscuity. The writers used Dominique as a red herring quite a bit.

A lot must be said for the direction, done by the great Luciano Ercoli. His use of pacing and suspense really added a lot to what could have easily been a mediocre giallo. Cinematography by the fab Alejandro Ulloa (of El Caminante fame) was eye-popping to say the least. Every shot was beautifully framed, and his use of light and shadow during the night scenes really added to the tension. Special props go to Ennio Morricone’s score.

In the end, I have to give this one 2 Thumbs Up, despite the lack of rampant nudity and the fact that it was packed to the rafters with sweaty Italian men. I prefer my men hairless and Scandinavian, but that’s a conversation best left for a long winter’s night. Friends, if you enjoy a good giallo from time to time, you could do a lot worse than Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion.

Bonus Sweaty Italian

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Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972): or, I Really Have Nothing to Add to That Title

Despite taking its title from a memorable, menacing note delivered to Edwige Fenech in director Sergio Martino's 1971 giallo classic The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, as well as calling back two of that movie's stars (Fenech and uber-Eurobaddie Ivan Rassimov), Martino's 1972 effort Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is not a sequel. In fact, a viewer might well struggle to see how that admittedly awesome title applies to this flick at all. There's plenty of vice going on, to be sure, but I can't remember a single locked room, even when it would have made sense to throw the bolts to keep nosy police inspectors and ex- or current lovers in the dark.

But looking for representational logic in gialli titles is surely a pathway to madness, and moreover, it doesn't really matter. What matters is that on the other side of that title card (which is superimposed over a soft-focused couple making hot Italian love in white satin sheets--zang), Martino delivers a wild, thrilling, and entertainingly perverse mystery/slasher that has as its touchstones both the macabre sensibility of Edgar Allan Poe and the high-octane excitement of muddy motocross. Add heaping helpings of Naked Edwige and enough J&B to pickle a pachyderm, and you've got a winner by any standard of measure.

J&B: You Know What Kind of Party It Is

We open at the palatial country estate of Oliviero Rouvigny (Luigi Pistilli), a decadent writer-type who achieved a great deal of fame in his early career but has since gone completely to seed. He shares the house with his gorgeous but obviously disturbed young wife Irina (Anita Strindberg), his beloved black cat Satan, and just about every acid-trippin', folk-singin', bra-slingin' hippie within spitting distance of the villa. While the flower children sing horrible folk songs and dance naked on his twelve-seater dining room table, Oliviero entertains himself by getting sweaty-drunk, groping his Afro-Italian maid , and subjecting Irina to varying levels of social and sexual humiliation. (During the opening free-love party, he collects all his guest's unfinished drinks in a large silver bowl and forces Irina to gulp it down, eventually soaking her with the backwash-laden vintage.)

As luck would have it, the Awful Author also has a not-quite-innocent Oedipal fixation. The Lady of the Manor, deceased only two or three years now, was apparently famous for being an actress and infamous for her sexual conquests, a subject her devoted son can't seem to talk about enough. Mommy is a constant presence in his life, thanks not only to Satan (who was her kitty) and the life-sized portrait of her in the main hall, but also the fabulous costume gown she wore in said portrait, which Oliviero still has and forces his lovers to wear while he engages them in rough sex! Is it any wonder Irina's mascara never seems to be on straight?

Strindberg gets her Crazyface On

Things start to seem even more dangerous for Irina when a bookstore clerk with whom Oliviero was having one of his many affairs turns up dead at a rock quarry, her throat spilling copious amounts of red tempra paint. (Of course we the audience get to see her stalked through the darkened terrain by the requisite black-gloved, fedora-wearing shadow, allowing Martino to show off some of the super-stylish camera work that is a constant joy in this film.) The police visit the next morning, merely as a formality, though the Inspector drops some not-too-subtle hints about Oliviero's suspect status. (His memorable aside, "Murder has a habit of involving all sorts of people, for no reason whatever!" could be a genre definition for gialli films in general!) When the maid tries on Mom's Sexy Dress and ends up similarly gutted in the Rouvigny Estate itself, one can't help thinking perhaps the fat cop is onto something.

In one of leaps that can really only happen in Italian sex-thrillers of the 70s, Oliviero offhandedly proclaims his innocence but refuses to call the police; rather, he decides they should immediately hide the maid's body by bricking her up behind a damaged wall in the wine cellar and never speaking of it again. Never mind the fact that a woman was murdered in his own home, and if he didn't do it, someone else did. Irina protests, but soon Oliviero browbeats her into helping him with his home- and alibi-improvement project.

"Leave me alone! I'm bein' a metaphor over here!"

Having established what day-to-day life is like for the Rouvignys, it's now time to throw a monkey wrench into the well-oiled machinery of their marital bliss. That wrench arrives in the form of Oliviero's niece Floriana, played of course by Vicar pantsthrob Edwige Fenech, who has decided for who knows what reason to come stay with her dear old unk for a few weeks. Floriana has grown up quite a bit since the last time her uncle bounced her on his knee, and his icky way of leering at her leaves no doubt he'd like to re-enact that memory, only further up the lap.

Floriana is a no-nonsense, self-assured free spirit, a strong woman who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it. She's also not shy about playing to her uncle's obvious incestuous lust, as they engage in sexy banter within moments of her arrival. "Sex is a very demanding occupation," Oliviero opines, "the basic requirement is imagination." To which Floriana replies, "All the imagination in the world woudn't do you any good--if you couldn't get a hard-on!" Irina stands by silently, looking uncomfortable--though the longing looks she also casts Floriana's way hint at something mysterious and sexy a-brewin'.

Made of Hotness

It's not long before Martino brings that mixture to a full rolling boil: noticing the palpable tension between husband and wife, Floriana quickly becomes Irina's confidant, hinting that perhaps the best way out of her bad marriage would be the removal of the offending party via tossing-off-a-cliff. Irina is too timid to enact that plan, but not too timid to succumb to Floriana's lesbonic advances later that evening in an incredibly sensuous love scene. Making the most of her country vacation, the naughty niece also seduces a local delivery boy, attending his weekend motocross race before taking him up to the Rouvigny barn loft to clean the grime off his sparkplugs, IYKWIMAITYD. Floriana then completes the hat-trick of hawtness by inviting her drunken uncle into her bedroom and popping out of bed in Dear Dead Mom's ornate gown before having her way with him as well. As a result, Irina and Oliviero grow increasingly jealous of each other, and both start thinking about filing for a Sicilian divorce.

The movie is absolutely bursting with atmosphere and visual richness. Martino gets in some hugely stylish and satisfying shots throughout, and his use of bright primary colors against gloomy shadowed backgrounds is often breathtaking. The story also pegs the perverso-meter again and again, with sexual humiliation, adultery, and strong implications of incest being just a few of the items on the menu. (In a particularly entertaining exchange, Floriana spars with Oliviero on this subject, asking flatly, "Is it true you slept with your mother?" Her uncle retorts, "Is it true you're a two-bit WHORE?" Touchy touchy!) The director is also helped by the jaw-dropping gorgeousness of both his female leads--Strindberg has a unique, striking beauty, with near-superhuman cheekbones and piercing blue eyes that convey vulnerability on the brink of madness most effectively, and of course Edwige is Edwige, which is to say, ZANG.

You guys go on ahead. I'm never leaving this place.

The black cat Satan is also a major player in the movie, popping up interstitially to stalk Irina's caged doves or wade through pools of blood like a dark furry metaphor. The cat also significantly hates Irina, who almost seems to believe the beast contains the jealous soul of Oliviero's mother, taking revenge via hissing and scratching for her having stolen Mommy's little boy away. The mutual loathing between Irina and Satan comes to a head in a scene that will surprise no one who's ever read Edgar Allan Poe seriously, but still manages to be shocking and more than a little creepy.

Of course since this is a giallo, things need to get all twisty-wisty in the third act, as the Black-Gloved killer strikes again and is proven to be someone you couldn't have reasonably suspected, other masks fall away as the motivations of the principals are revealed, main characters die, and it all wraps up in an homage to Poe that again is not unexpected, but because of that has something of the poetically inescapable in it, the gears of Fate clicking home and turning in the only way they ever could. (Also: look for a scene that prefigures an iconic scene in The Shining by about eight years; was Kubrick a fan?)

Rassimov the Ice King

I've stated previously that All the Colors of the Dark was my favorite Martino giallo, but now I think Your Vice is a Locked Room... has wrested that title from its claws. The movie looks gorgeous, Martino's camera work and color schemes are divine, and the story is as perverse and exciting as you could ask for. The acting is great across the board--Pistilli is perfectly cast as the run-dry decadent author surviving on booze and psychosexual issues, and Strindberg is great as the frightened, slowly going-mad wife. Fenech is gorgeous as always, here rockin' the bob-haircut and go-go boots like no other; she also gets to work her acting muscles a bit by playing a sexy, confident schemer instead of the sexy damsel in distress, and she pulls it off beautifully. (Also beautifully pulled off by Edwige: her clothes.) Ivan Rassimov appears in a surprisingly small role, but makes the most of his limited screen time.

The only thing that works against the film for my money is some fairly ugly racism directed at the Rogivny's black maid by just about everyone in the flick--although it could be argued that this is meant to be indicitive of the moral wasteland in which even the "good" characters live and operate. Still, Your Vice is a Locked Room... hit on all other cylinders for me, and hit them so hard and fast that I am pleased to give it the 3+ Thumb rating. Even if you don't think you like gialli, check this one out.

Some more great images from Your Vice is a Locked Room...(1972)

You bet they buy it by the case

Edwige has the same effect on me

Free Dummy!

Oliviero's editor was displeased with the latest draft

This shot just isn't fair.

Sweet Jesus...

This one's for me, not you

"OBEY!"

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Crimes of the Black Cat (1972): or. Sure, Blame the Pussy

I love a good giallo title. Even though the definitively Italian stalk-and-slash is not my favorite instantiation of the Horror model (I'm much more a Monsters Amok or Satanic Panic kind of guy), there are still few things in the genre that make me smile like one of the really good, really giallo-y film names. Stuff like Four Flies on Grey Velvet, What Have They Done to Solange?, Strip Nude for Your Killer, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key--irrespective of my feelings about the films, those titles roll off the tongue like short poems, beautiful horror haiku conjuring imagery and mystery like almost nothing else in the genre.

The giallo title can be a double-edged sword, however, when the filmmakers (or more often the American translators/distributors) eschew mysterious imagery and evocative sounds for the all-too-literal. Not only does such a title fall flat, but it runs the risk of becoming a spoiler, robbing the film of some of the suspense and uncertainty that is its stock in trade. Such is sadly the case with Sergio Pastore's 1972 giallo Crimes of the Black Cat*, in which spends about the first forty-five minutes to an hour trying to figure out how these baffling, near-impossible crimes are being perpetrated, how a killer could kill and then disappear from a locked room with the only exits much too small for a human being to use...well, thanks to that title (to say nothing of the spoileriffic poster), the audience already knows. Which is a shame, because it takes a little punch out of what is otherwise a stylishly filmed, interestingly plotted thriller rife with the kind of bright-colored groovy ghoulishness Madites know and love.

*The movie's Italian title, Sette scialli di seta gialla, translates roughly "Seven Yellow Silk Shawls." While still not very good as poetry, at least it keeps the killer under wraps.

Bad Kitty.

We open with some travelogue footage shot on the streets of 1970s Rome, a period and place so groovy I want a Way-back Machine just so I can bask in the awesome for an afternoon. (The uber-groovy music by Manuel De Sica, who 22 years later would score the awesome zombie love story Dellamorte Dellamore [aka Cemetery Man], helps a lot.) Soon our roving camera eye focuses on fashion model Paola Whitney (Isabelle Marchall), a blonde in a fur coat adorned with ACTUAL ANIMAL TAILS. Classee. She seems to be going somewhere, intent on doing something, but what and why we are given no clue.

Cutting from the daylit streets of Rome to a nightclub in the backalleys, we next meet Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen), an avant-garde pianist and successful film composer by trade, who also happens to be blind as a chronically masturbating bat. Stood up by his date via a Dear Giovanni letter he has to get his manservant Burton to read for him (harshful), Peter drowns his sorrows in scotch and happens to overhear a mysterious conversation from the next booth over, where a strung-out woman is being given nefarious instructions by an unseen (duh) gravel-voiced conspirator. When a hippie chick cranks up the jukebox to go all Goldie Hawn/Laugh-In for a few wonderful minutes, Peter loses the thread and the couple departs.

"She writes, 'I don't think we should see each other anymore (haha).' Man, what a bitch."

Next we are plopped down in the middle of a clothing design firm, where head honchess Françoise (Sylva Koscina) and gorgeous sweatshop seamstress Margot (Shirley Corrigan) are selecting models for an upcoming fashion show. Françoise's philandering toyboy and the firm's half-owner Victor (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) is also on hand to lend some feather-haired sleaziness to the proceedings. Preparations grind to a halt when star model Paola finds a wicker basket covered with a yellow silk shawl in her dressing room; donning the shawl (like you do) and opening the basket, the girl screams and drops dead of an apparent heart attack! Rushing to her aid, the other models and designers find the room empty of baskets and killers, the only clue being the silk shawl the girl still has clutched in her cooling dead fist.

Of course everything is connected, as Paola was the main squeeze who gave Blind Pete the old heave-ho in the opening scene. Still seeking closure on their ill-fated relationship, Peter shows up at the murder scene and interrogates Police Inspector Jansen (Renato De Carmine, an intelligent, dumpy bald guy with frankly startling green eyes) about his erstwhile girlfriend's death. Also dissatisfied with the polizzi's "natural causes" theory, Margot joins forces with the sightless Casanova to get to the bottom of Paola's mysterious death.

It just so happens Margot knows a photographer named Harry who Paola was intimate with--much to Peter's chagrin--and they decide to head over to his studio-cum-fuckpad to see what he knows. Alas too late, as after dismissing his nicely topless model and retiring to the darkroom, the shutterbug is visited by a heavy-breathing, black-gloved figure of the sort we just knew was going to show up sooner or later. The photog is slashed but good, and when Peter and Margot arrive they just miss slimy CEO Victor rifling through the dead man's negatives. Is he the killer, or just a rapacious collector of still-lifes-with-boobs? That answer will have to wait, as he escapes undetected but without whatever booty he was searching for. Margot and Peter come in and scope the joint, leading to a nicely filmed "discovery" scene where the blind pianist literally stumbles right into the Harry's body, not realizing it till his sighted companion screams.

Douchebag Under Glass

The movie has been beautifully shot up to this point, with lots of the long-perspective compositions and bright primary colors that are hallmarks of the genre. The groovy music and fashions add to the fun, and the acting's not too bad either. Steffen is aloof and slightly dickish as the blind guy who sees more than the cops, but his handicap and apparently genuine feeling for the deceased mitigate that a bit. (His warm relationship with manservant/sidekick Burton, played with Alfred-like sophisticated devotion by Umberto Raho, also helps.) Shirley Corrigan is as gorgeous here as she was in Naschy's Dr. Jekyll and the Wolfman, and in fact seems to be wearing the same boots--not that I'm complaining. The plot moves along at a good clip, and I was very into it and wondering what would happen next.

As it turns out, the negatives the deceased pic-clicker was developing were shots of Victor and Paola in bed, which Harry and Paola hoped to use to blackmail the married-to-money man-about-town. When the truth comes out and Victor must explain his presence at the scene of the murder (along with his jail record for a fraud conviction), Françoise is as understanding as only a Eurobabe can be. She departs for a show in Hamburg, but promises to stick with Vic through thin and thick.

Groovy.

Meanwhile we meet the mysterious, strung-out caped woman from the bar back in scene 1 or 2, whose name is Susan Leclerc (Giovanna Lenzi). Susan used to work in a circus--no, really--until her husband was EATEN BY A LION, leading her to hit the smack and hit it hard. Now middle-aged and wasted, she runs a pet shop mysteriously named UNDULATER (?) and takes on the odd assassination job for our black-gloved mastermind. If you haven't figured out her weapon of choice before you sat down to watch, maybe you should give up the crosswords and focus on the word jumbles from now on. Having trained her pet cat to attack yellow silk by spraying it with a repellent only cats and blind pianists can smell, Susan dips the kitty's claws in deadly curare poison and puts it in her victims' room along with the target-marking scarf, like a tiny furry deathbomb. But who is paying her, and why?

The next several scenes involve Susan, desperate for a fix, knocking off a couple more models from Françoise's firm, including a stand-out scene in which a lesbian model opens the basket only to have the feline ninja (puppet version) leap out into her face as if shot from a...well, let's just say a "trebuchet." Seriously, if the below were the last thing you saw on earth, I think you'd have to admit you went out in a pretty awesome way:

"RRRROOOWWWRRR!"

Breasts are seen, a couple of other people die, and Margot is stalked by the black-gloved killer as Peter desperately tries to place the odd odors he keeps whiffing at every crime scene. Guilt-stricken and depressed, Susan commits suicide, and the final confrontation at a glass factory is very tense if you overlook Peter's rather incredible willingness to put himself in dangerous situations for no good reason. ("I know I'm blind, but let's climb onto this 45-degree-angle conveyor belt and see where it takes me! The glass furnace? Oh, SHIT!") He makes it out remarkably unscathed, though, and the Inspector shows up to bring the killer to swift bloody justice.

Or does he? Margot takes a post-climax shower (IYKWIM), giving us some nice nudity that may or may not actually be Corrigan--and we end with a bit of shocking violence and WTF motivation to go out on that should keep fans of the giallo and the Grand Guignol happy.

"Dear God, Vicar, THAT'S not the loofah!"

Writer/director Sergio Pastore shows a lot of visual style in this flick, and I was always impressed with the compositions and colors he used, which though typical for this type of movie and this period are nonetheless effective. As I said, the snooty pianist softened by his compassion for his dead lover and the devotion to his butler and best friend Burton is a neat bit of depth for the character, and I could watch Shirley Corrigan and/or her body double take a shower for an hour and not get bored. For lovers of the MAD there's plenty of blood and boobage on display, not to mention the underused DEATH BY CATS device that's always a joy to see. All of which rounds the flick out as a satisfying viewing experience on nearly all levels.

So despite the spoiler title, Crimes of the Black Cat delivers. 2.5 thumbs, and definitely worth your time if you love a little dangerous pussy. And who doesn't, eh?

Quit While You're Ahead

More cool images from Crimes of the Black Cat:

Shirley Corrigan: "OBEY!"

Eye-catching jewelry.

Maybe she's born with it.

In the Red Room, no one can hear David Duchovny wank.

"Really? You thought I'd be impressed with dinner at The Golden Boobs?"

"...and THAT'S a hole in the ground. See the difference?"

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