The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire

The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire.
Original Title: L’iguana dalla lingua di fuoco
Directed by: Riccardo Freda
Italy/France/West Germany, 1971
Giallo, 92 min
Distributed by: New Entertainment [OOP]

Giallo time again! It’s been way to long since I sat down with a Giallo and why not get back into the groove with Riccardo Freda’s The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire that’s been mocking me from the middle of the pile of “must watch soon” stuff for quite some while now.

For some odd reason I’ve never really checked out much of a Riccardo Freda’s movies even tough he’s one of the pioneers of Italian Horror and Fantasy genres. My knowledge of this guy goes as far as knowing that he directed the classics L’orrible segreto del Dr. Hitchcock (The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock) 1962, I vampiri (Lust of the Vampire) 1956, Caltiki – il monstro immortale (Caltiki, the Immortal Monster) 1959 and that he supposedly abandoned the last two movies to let his cinematographer and protégé Mario Bava complete them so that he could get a head start in the directing game.

Being the man who helped lift forth the great Mario Bava, it’s odd to watch a movie which Freda tried to set in the realm of the genre his former protégé established. At the time the movie was made, 1971, Dario Argento had already started refining the genre with the impeccable The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 1970, and would release his follow up, The Cat o’Nine Tails the same year as this one. The likes of Umberto Lenzi, Sergio Martino, Luciano Erccoli, Lucio Fulci and others also where in the process of making some terrific genre pieces, so in some ways it makes sense that the Grand old Man of Italian fantastic should present a piece within the Gialli spehre.

After an establishing opening title sequence that shows us that the movie is going to take place in Dublin, Ireland, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire get’s right in there from the start, and blasts off with an initial attack where we see a young woman preparing for bed. Subjective camera work shows us stalking her, and unnerved by the presence she moves to the phone to call for help – or something like that. But just as sure that cell phones won’t work in contemporary horror, the cord has been cut and she can’t call anyone. Instead the killer uses his leather gloved hand to fiddle with the fuses, steps in behind her and after tossing acid in her face produces the tool of the trade – a straight razor and slits that throat from side to side leavening a geyser of blood gushing out. It’s an effective opening as it presents many of the Giallo traits in one neat little package, there’s no doubt what kind of movie this is going to be after that opening.

So with the initial murder out of the way it’s time to start establishing characters, and start laying out the red herrings. The family of Swiss Ambassador Sobiesky prepare for a little ride only to have chauffeur Mandel [Renato Romano – who starred in Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 1970 and Guilio Questi’s strange Giallo Death Laid an Egg 1968] discover the body of the woman killed in the opening sequence in the boot of their car! This sets off the series of events that introduces the gallery of main suspects to the plot. The Ambassador’s wife, Mrs. Sobiesky [Valentina Cortese – from Truffaut’s brilliant Day for Night 1973, Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits 1965 and Luigi Bazzoni’s The Possessed 1965] and is surprised to find her husband the Ambassador [Anton Diffring who we all know from Jess Franco’s masterful Faceless 1987 and Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun 1977] at home, as he’s supposed to be in Switzerland, and Doctor Johnson [Niall Toibin – who played Reverend Coot in George Pavlou’s Rawhead Rex 1986] who files his report on the disfigured victim and answers the Ambassadors question if he thinks anyone would ever be able to identify the victim with the sinister reply “The murderer has done a perfect Job. A specialist I would say, like me”.

It also get’s the detective work underway as Inspector Lawrence [Arthur O’Sullivan] is introduced into the plot and set’s up a key problem for the movie. The murder has taken place at the Ambassadors residence and his diplomatic immunity obtains the police from being able to question them about the killing. Although this first introduction of the Inspector is pretty darned shaky, and daft. He receives the passport of the dead woman, hence revealing her identity, and has an almost Monty Pythonesque exchange of dialogue with his assistant before they get in the car and head out to the Embassy.

Obviously the Ambassador avoids the few questions that he actually answers and the focus is shifted to the Chauffeur Mandel once again who obviously bring further question marks to the investigation. The Ambassadors daughter Helen Sobiesky [Dagmar Lassander] goes out for the night with her boyfriend and ends up in a weird lounge parlour/pub where a second murder is committed after a few shots of various suspicious characters. The murdered pub crooner and ambassador Sobiesky’s mistress is Dominique Boschero – who was in loads of genre pieces like Aldo Lado’s brilliant Who Saw Her Die? 1972 and Sergio Martino’s All the Colours of the Dark 1972 to name a two.

But this murder doesn’t stop her from going home with the bloke, John Norton [Luigi Pistilli – Leone’s epic The Good, the Bad, the Ugly 1966, Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood 1971 and Sergio Martino’s Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I have the Key 1972] who unashamedly picks her up outside the pub. After a motorbike ride home – which obviously isn’t though Dublin – they arrive at the embassy and being the easy girl that she is, Helen invites Norton in, and they end up in the sack. Cue Stelivo Cipriani’s romantic themed score as Pistilli and Lassander roll around in bed.

So, now we have the main cast established the movie can get going, and about time too as it’s just gone past the first half hour of play. Norton and his family are established, and his mother, an obvious amateur detective tells Norton all about her great theory and who she suspects killed the two women, but Norton just laughs it off and goes back to the Embassy to sneak around in the dark. Aha! So Norton is going to be the amateur detective of the piece we now understand. But after being beaten up and arrested by the coppers keeping an eye on the Sobiesky estate, Inspector Lawrence greets Norton as an old friend. Norton turns out to be a former detective who left the force due to some unfortunate events during an interrogation of a previous suspect. Lawrence brings him in to assist on the case as he, with his unorthodox methods can work outside the regulations of the force.

With the “detective” now taking on the investigation, the murder mystery can start to be puzzled together as Detective John Norton get’s on top of Helen and the case. The hunt for answers and a concrete suspect, because we are still being presented with many possible culprits, get’s deeper and darker leaving a trail of murders in its wake. What is the link between the Sobiesky family and the killings and why are Norton’s family being threatened? Well, it’s all revealed as The Iguana with a Tongue of Fire comes to a quite shocking climax proving once and for all that you should always listen to your mother!

I have some issues with the movie that never really make it take off in the mode, or evoke the interest that other great Gialli does, perhaps it’s because the movie lingers on for too long before bringing in the “amateur detective”, that important character who will take us along for the ride, and be the beacon of investigation for the audience. Or perhaps it’s the ludicrous constant indicators both visuals and audio, with that sharp “Aschwhiiinnggg” sound effect that indicates “this item is of importance” as the camera zooms in endlessly… which later didn’t proves to have no real importance at all… like the sunglasses or each time a straight razor is shown. There’s no need to write it so blatantly on the face of the audience as we know when we see a shot of a razor, like the on in Norton’s home, that it’s a red herring and automatically pose the question – could he be the killer – all by our self with out the silly sound cues. I also feel that the movie tries to hard to set up the suspects, each time the doctor in on screen it’s just quite too obvious that Freda wants’ to set us up and have us thinking that the doctor is the killer… a little more subtlety would have done nicely.

The movie sometimes gets lost in it’s desire to be complex and the pointing out certain key moments, the indication of certain elements. Sometimes it just pushes to hard and almost becomes insulting, as I know what to keep an eye open for and I know how to follow the leads and clues without being told that that’s what they are.

Acting is all right, apart from that early scene between Inspector Lawrence and his assistant, that still comes of as a bad Python sketch, but otherwise the actors get the job done, and Lassander get’s yet another opportunity to get out of her designer dresses.

The complexity of Pistilli's Norton’s character is by far the most interesting theme in the movie. It set’s up a great conflict that the man on the case get’s all cramped up as a former suspect took his own life, by Norton’s gun during an interrogation some time back. It’s given Norton notoriety as a hard-ass brute cop, but he still can’t really come to terms with violence, and has several flashbacks to that moment whilst in action… but for some odd reason Freda ignores this after establishing it and Norton easily beats the crap out of anyone who get’s in his way. Which is a shame, because that would have made a difference as a protagonist which personal restraints, has to overcome these obstacles first to save the day. Which would have made the rather creepy and disturbing finale even more effective. Only when his family is on the line would he cross the line and overcome his obstacle of resisting violence. But that’s not the case as said, and Norton just stays a cliché of genre cops.

And I’m actually surprised that the movie didn’t make a bigger impression on me – sure it has some fine moment’s but merely mediocre at that - because movies scripted, or co-written by Sandro Continenza [Enzo G. Castellari’s The Inglorious Bastards 1978, Jorge Grau’s The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue 1974, Lucio Fulci’s The Senator Likes Women 1972 and José Luis Madrid’s 7 Murders for Scotland Yard 1971] are usually pretty dammed fine pieces. Some things though do work in The Iguana with The Tongue of Fire, there’s a few great set ups that are paid off later on, one being Norton’s mothers constant neglect of her glasses and hearing aids, and her amateur detective suggestions after Norton has been introduced into the plot. But in the whole it’s not quite there.

I can’t quite grasp why Freda decided that he needed to hide behind a silly pseudonym like Willy Parento, and didn’t just go with his real name or the Robert Hampton that he’d used on previous works. Possibly it was something with the many co-producers that wanted an anonymous name to their film or perhaps Riccardo Freda wasn’t quite satisfied with the movie he’d made…

The Iguana with The Tongue of Fire has a great score by the masterful Stelvio Cipriani with some wonderfull vocals by Nora Orlandi this time. Orlandi is also a great composer who has Romolo Guerrieri’s The Sweet Body of Deborah 1968 and Sergio Martino’s The Strange Case of Mrs. Wardh 1971 on her resume. But here she sticks to playing the piano and crooning along to Cipriani’s tunes. Sticking close to a theme that constantly returns in various forms, it’s a neat album with nods at Bernard Herrman on a few occasions, but still staying true to that great loungy Italian style. Oddly though, Cipriani reuses a piece from Mario Bava’s A Bay of Blood in two in new guises. But then again they are only used in short sequences, but I’m starting to see a pattern here where many a Cipriani soundtracks reuse previous pieces and reworking of former bits. But I dig Cipriani so it all works for me.

All in all, you could say that The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire is an all right little piece that follows Giallo conventions by the book, but unfortunately doesn’t really make that much of an impression on me. At it’s best I find it a decent one, but nothing that I’d set up amongst the greatest of the genre, it’s entertaining but one that I don’t feel that stands up to repeated viewing. Which is a shame because this is the sort of thing that Freda should have been able to nail completely with his extensive catalogue behind him and the importance that he held for the Italian Fantastic genres. But unfortunately he doesn’t and the movie just rolls on and at it’s best could be remembered for some nice shots of Dublin, cheap gore effects and a great soundtrack.

Image:

Anamorphic 16:9 Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby digital 5.1 German dubbed dialogue, Dolby Digital 2.0 German and Dolby Digital 2.0 English dubbed versions. Optional German subtitles.

Extras:

A German promo and a small photo gallery.

The Frightened Woman

Frightened Woman.

Original Title: Femina Ridens

Aka: The Laughing Woman

Directed by: Piero Schivazappa

Thriller/Drama, 86.03min

Italy, 1969

Distributed by: Shameless Films Entertainment.

Story:

A young woman spends the weekend with a Doctor in an attempt to unveil his evil ways, although get’s more than she bargained for when the erotic game takes a serious turn. Slowly but surely roles are changed and a fiendish plan is set in motion.

Me:

Femina Ridens could easily be viewed as being degrading towards women, as it does deal with a topic that will at first estrange women and could be perceived as objectifying them. This would be an easy statement to make about this movie and many like it in the ”exploitation” genre. But if you where to claim that this movie is an insult towards women, then it’s a fair guess that you have missed the point of the movie (or fell asleep before the final reel) as I would claim that the major plot twist makes this movie a highly feminist movie. After all who is using whom for their own needs here? Who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist?

Maria [Dagmar Lassander] is an eager journalist who get’s an opportunity to spend the weekend with Dr. Sayer [Philippe Leroy, who you possibly saw in Dario Argento’s pale finale to the Mother’s Trilogy, The Mother of Tears, Umberto Lenzi’s splendid Gang War in Milan or Lilliana Cavani’s The Night Porter, yeah the one that jumpstarted the Nazisploitation genre], whom she plans to spend a few nights and days with so that she can get the scoop on him. She suspects that he is a murderer who kills his victims as he climaxes during sex, and she's going to bring him in. Or at least that is her initial plan...

Getting into action, Maria goes home with Sawyer but soon finds that he’s once again setting his sinister plans and sexual fantasies into action as she's lured into a fiendish world of sadomasochistic eroticism. At first she resists, but with time she starts to come around, only to learn that Sayer instead rejects her once she has submitted to him. Maria becomes desperate, and continues to play along with Sayers sadomasochistic games, and in one weak moment he confides in her and shows her photographs of his previous victims…

Now terrified of becoming Sayer's next victim, Maria tries to commit suicide by downing a fistful of pills instead. This is where things start to get really interesting. When Sayers realises that Maria dying would deprave him of his latest sex slave, he saves her. But this rescue isn’t salvation but instead becomes his damnation. He starts to feel emotional towards Maria, after all he shared his secret of the murders with her, and she listened to him tell the tale of his childhood memories, she knows him on a deeper level. (Which could be of use for her invest gory newspaper article!)

Dr Sayer, also grows as a character, in his fear of loosing his sexual play thing, he tends to her and nurses her back to health, and the two find themselves growing closer and closer. But subtly Maria is taking the dominating role instead of Sayer. It is now she who resists his approaches, as he moves in for intimacy, she backs off, taunting him in the same way he taunted her earlier.

Finally the climax to their erotic sadomasochistic game, in a sudden twist that you possibly may have seen coming, but at the same time a highly satisfactory climax, and the same one I claim makes this movie a feminist movie. Ages ago academics like Cynthia Freedland and Laura Mulvey argued that classic filmmaking is dominated by the “Male Gaze”, i.e. Women are only objects on screen for a male audience to google at, hence the starting accusation of this piece that it could easily be seen as a classical movie where females are only there to bring a voyeuristic and erotic element to the movie. But as I also pointed out the roles change and with the final scenes the tables have been turned on “us” the male audience, and if we follow Carol J. Clover’s writings on the female role in “horror cinema” she points out that we actually accept the fact that we identify with the “final girl/women in peril”, hence rendering her an active, valuable character and in no means passive and unimportant. That is exactly what happens here, as the final scene is played out. The rush of insight makes us realise that Maria is not a victim in yet another cheesy chauvinistic exploitation flick, but a strong, determined predator with a very obvious agenda that she is following in a splendid genre piece that plays with traditional gender roles and prejudice inherited from previous entries in the genre.

Trashy, 60’s pop arty, bold and an excellent movie to say the least. The cinematography by Carlo and Sante Achilli is fabulous, often reminiscent of Gialli photography, and relying heavily on symmetrical compositions to create stern images that go hand in hand with the strict and spartan modernism of Dr. Sayer's house of sin.

Producer Guiseppe Zaccariello only produced a handful of movies, among them Mario Bava’s milestone Giallo A Bay of Blood [1971], Rino Di Silvestro’s Nazisploitation Deported Women of the SS Special Section [1976], and Joe D’Amato’s Jungle war/Spaghetti Western hybrid Tough to Kill [1978]. Zaccariello not only produced, but also wrote scripts, and got a screenwriter credit on all three movies which all, by coincidence, just like Schivazappa’s Femina Ridens feature great scores by maestro Stelvio Cipriani.

If you are into that Freudian analysis thing, then you’ll have field day with this movie. It’s riddled with male/female emancipation as it uses archetypical gender roles and the prejudice that lies within those roles, subtle symbolism, especially the fabulous scene where Dr. Sayer walks into the crotch of a giant statue of a woman lying on her back only to have razor sharp sliding doors slam shut behind him in a monstrous Vagina Dentate. Once the doors open, only Sayers skeleton remains… Make what you want of it, but it’s a marvellous scene.

The Sculpture - Installation ”Hon-en Katedral” (literally she-a cathedral) by the artist collective Niki de Saint Phalle / Jean Tinguely / Per Olof Ultvedt was re-produced for the movie, as the original once stood at Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1966. After entering the giant sculpture through the vagina visitors could enjoy a cinema, a rollercoaster ride, gaze upon a goldfish pond or buy soda from a vending machine. Now that should give you an impression of size!

As you may recall from my bit on Luciano Ercoli’s The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, Dagmar Lassander never really made an imprint on me in any of her movies, (even though she was in two Fulci movies and that first tickling Ercoli Giallo) but this is possibly one of the exceptions, as she really makes this movie work and her acting is top notch as she slowly shifts from victim to perpetrator. She really sells the part perfectly, and instead of the regular “Oh I’m in Shock!” face, she actually manages to act with her facial expressions here too. She is fully believable as she curiously sets foot into Dr. Sayers world, terrified as he starts to enslave and break her down, flirtatious and sexy as she gives in to his plan, only to set her own in motion and stand victorious and content after her triumph. Once again this transition and performance is what sells the shift into a feminist theory discussion held above.

This edition claims to be a restored version, and for a change it’s not a marketing trick (which the UNCUT – UNRATED stamps usually signal to me when I’m choosing editions to buy), as the team at Shameless with the use of a varied bin of source materials, and constant dialogue with director Piero Schivazappa. This all led up to their screening for him, where he held with script in hand, later responded; “It is as faithful as it can be to the original script”, “This IS the version of my film to watch.” Once again Shameless bring a fascinating movie back to the intended vision of the filmmakers and make it available for fans of the genre after a painstaking labour of love is presented.

Image:

1.85 : 1, Remastered for 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

English Dialouge, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo

Extras:

The customary assortment of Trailers for other titles available from Shameless: Tonino Valerii’s My Dear Killer, Corrado Farina’s Baba Yaga (which Shamless also restored to HIS vision of the movie, not the butchered version available previously), Lucio Fulci’s Black Cat, Guiliano Carnimeno’s RatMan, and both of Massimo Dallamano’s Venus in Furs, and What Have They Done to Your Daughters. There’s also the Shameless Redux trailer for The Frightened Woman, but below I give you the original grindhouse trailer for your entertainment.

The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion

The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion
Original Title: Le foto prohibite di una signora per bene
Directed by: Luciano Ercoli
Giallo, 1970
Italy, 96 min
Distributed by: Blue Underground

Story:
A young woman, Minou is lured into a fiendish web of blackmail and extortion as she tries to protect her husband. Slowly but surely she is tangled up in a terrible game which forces her to engage in lurid sexual activity while the Blackmailer shoots photographs of her. When she finally tells her husband all, and they together with the police breakdown the door to the sex fiends’ apartment, it is empty and Minou’s sanity is questioned. But guess who shows up outside their house in the middle of the night in the pouring rain… The Blackmailer. Minou confronts him and the horrific truth is finally revealed in a plot twist that you never saw coming…
…if you never saw a Giallo before that is.

Me: Luciano Ercoli’s first attempt at directing a Giallo proves that you don’t need a bunch of violent killings to keep the story going. All you need is to delicately plant your red herrings here and there along the way to keep your audience guessing where the movie is going. The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is a great example of this, and although it’s not my favorite of Ercoli’s Gialli, I found it to be a damned fine and entertaining movie.


Having produced a few dramas, some comedies and three movies for among others Duccio Tessari [both his Ringo Spaghetti Westerns and the action/comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang from 1966 ] it is no surprise that Luciano Ercoli wanted to get himself behind the camera and direct a few movies. And you have to give it to the man, of the eight movies he did direct, there are at least half of them really fabulous genre pieces.


The absurd ending to Ercoli’s career is as enigmatic and strange as the Gialli he directed. His final movie, the Poliziotteschi The Rip Off [La Bidonata 1977] was shelved after the producer Niccolo De Nora was kidnapped! De Nora was held captive for an amazing 524 days, and the ransom was supposedly well over four million. Not long after Ercoli came into a large inheritance, packed up his offices and retired from the movie industry. With a mind filled of red herrings and warped plots makes it easy to fantasize about the strange events and their conclusions. Ercoli obviously had nothing to do with the kidnapping, but it’s a fantastic story. Thanks to the age of restored movies on DVD, Ercoli’s The Rip Off, just like Mario Bava’s last shelved project, Rabid Dogs has finally been able to be presented to it's audience.


Often critiqued for his Gialli first and foremost being vehicle for his girlfriend (or wife, nobody knows for sure) Nieves Navarro aka Susan Scott, I still can’t help to find myself feeling that there is indeed more to these movies in Ercoli’s Giallo suite than just showcasing his fabulous wife. Navarro was a decent enough actress even before Ercoli started directing his own movies, and in some way that kind of diminishes the craft that the rest of the crew put into these pieces. I can certainly understand that one may like to claim that Ercoli only made the movies to show off his marvelous partner, but in all honestly there’s no way they could assemble the casts and crew if that where the case.

All three of the Gialli, The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion 1970, Death Walks on High Heels 1971 and Death Walks at Midnight 1972, where all written by the master of the genre, Ernesto Gastaldi (Midnight was co-written by the great Sergio Corbucci). And, The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is a great script which definitely has an engaging narrative, wonderful plot twists, even if there are no genre typical killings. It builds empathy for Dagmar Lassander's Minou character as she is lured deeper and deeper into a sinister blackmail scheme set to force her into bed with the stalker. Friend and ally Dominique, played to perfection by Nieves Navarro (as Susan Scott) uses her emancipation to trick the viewers into never quite knowing who’s side she is on, is she really concerned for Minou or is she in cohorts with the blackmailer. The sleazy Blackmailer played by Simón Andreu is excellent, (Andreu returned in all three of the Giallo movies) and Minou’s husband Peter [Pier Paolo Capponi – no stranger to the Giallo genre or the Nunsploitation genre for that part…] once again prove that in an Italian Gialli you can’t trust any man at all, unless it’s the old reliable police commissioner of course. The shock surprise end doesn’t really come as a bombshell after seeing a reasonable amount of movies in the Giallo niche, but at the same time it doesn’t really take all that much away from the story as the final twist is held for an as late as possible reveal, and there’s plenty of red herrings along the way to keep you guessing who masterminded the plan against Minou. It’s pretty common Gialli ground, and entertaining enough to keep the steam going all the way through.



The editing on both Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight was performed by Angelo Curi. Ercoli himself edited The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, with Curi as his assistant, and Curi stayed on as first editor on all the films Ercoli directed from there on. The Cinematography by Alejandro Ulloa on The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is probably the simplest of the three Gialli, but brooding sinister reds and deep dark blues create some wonderfully lit scenes. Fernando Arribas on the other hand used the frame much better on Death Walks on High Heels and Death Walks at Midnight, setting the camera at low angles and using wide lenses for some really delicious shots that can’t be found in The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion.


Then there’s the soundtrack. Ennio Morricone’s score for The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is standard Morricone fare, which is easily summed up in the word fantastic. The music of Morricone does wonders to add to the lush feeling of the Gialli and this one is no exception.

Finally a small reflection on the actors, I’ve never been much of a fan of Dagmar Lassander. She has the same two, three facial expressions in her repertoire and never does much to surprise. (With perhaps Piero Schivazappa’s The Frightened Woman being the exception) and there’s not really any surprises here either, she just get’s the job done. Navarro is almost always fabulous as she constantly wears clothes that look dazzling on her (contrary to Lassander who looks like she got makeup and dressed in the dark), perfect makeup and that stunning smile. I think that if Ercoli had flipped the parts here, had Navarro in the Lassander part, put in Anita Strindberg, Edwige Fenech or Marisa Mell in that ferocious part I'm positive that the movie would have become a classic of the genre. Not taking anything away from The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion, it is a great movie, and it really keeps you trying to figure out who is in on the scam and how far they are going to go with it. But a re-shuffle of the cast would have been beneficial. This could possibly have been in the mind of Ercoli too, as this is exactly what he did with the next two installments of his Gialli suite, giving Navarro the lead, Andreau the male lead, and probably what ignited that reputation of his movies only being a vehicle for Navarro. But if you are married to a woman like that you’d be insane not to have her lead your movie.


One of the things that intrigues me about The Forbidden Photographs of a Lady Above Suspicion is that the opening sequence is terrible! The movie opens on Lassander in the bath, she gets out and ponders around her house talking to herself how she’s going to seduce Peter when he get’s back from work. Not until she gets outside and Andreau starts stalking her on the beach does it start to pick up pace. But that opening is just so ridiculous, and it would have been much better to start with her on the beach, roll the credits over shots of her walking and then start straight off with the attack instead of that meaningless five minute blotch at the start.


Image:
Widescreen, 2.35:1 [16x9 Anamorphic]

Audio:
English Dubbed version. Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono. No subtitles.
Extras:
Forbidden Screenplays. A short interview with Ernesto Gastaldi on the script and movie and the Theatrical Trailer.