Killer Cop

Killer Cop
Original Title: La polizia ha le mani legate
Directed by: Luciano Ercoli
Italy, 1975
Poliziotteschi, 95min

I read somewhere that the greatest director of all time is Charles Laughton… Yes, Charles Laughton. And this is based on the one single movie that he ever officially directed – the 1955 masterpiece The Night of the Hunter starring Robert Mitchum. Well if that’s the sort of logic that we are going to be using, then I’d say that Luciano Ercoli is one of the most underestimated directors of the Italian genre scene. Where many of his contemporary colleagues had been hard at work before Ercoli sat himself down in the director chair in 1970, only to get up and disappear off the scene forever more in 1977, Ercoli certainly directed a handful of great movies. And as he quit whilst he was ahead, he never ended up making the kind of lesser movies that many of the other great directors ended up making. So in whatever way you look at it, there’s no way you can deny that Luciano Ercoli is one of the greats.

Amongst the eight movies that Luciano Ercoli directed the final two where crime oriented movies. Where La bidonata (The Rip Off) 1977 was more of a spoofy take on the Poliziotteschi genre, La polizia ha le manig legate (Killer Cop) was a en excellent little dark piece that perhaps deserves to be brought back into the spotlight – because it is one of the finest entries into the Poliziotteschi genre.

Commissioner Matteo Rolandi [Claudio Cassinelli – looking as if he just walked off the set of Massimo Dallamano’s La polizia chiede aiuto (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?) 1974] working hard at busting a drug ring narrowly escapes death when a bomb goes off in the hotel he’s investigating. Several people are killed and among them several prestigious Ambassadors of the International Committee, which obviously sends ripples and outcry through the halls of justice. With an international crisis possible Judge Armando “Minty” Di Federico [Arthur Kennedy] – renown for not taking bribes and being untouchable - is put on the case of the bombings with the hopes of clearing up the mess quickly and efficiently. Still on the prowl, Rolandi starts mooching around for clues in the evidence that is brought back from the bombing case as he suspects that there might be a connection. Rolandi’s best friend Luigi [Franco Fabrizi] degraded to walking the streets due to his clumsiness, sees a young man reading the newspaper reports on the bombings and crying, his instincts tell him that there’s something about the kid and follows him. The kid, Franco [Bruno Zanin] leaves the newspaper in a phone booth, where he’s written an apology and claiming that it (the bombing) was an accident. Luigi takes up pursuit, but as he’s left his piece in Rolandi’s car, he is forced to let him get away when Franco draws a gun on him.

Being the only witness to have seen the only suspect Luigi first gets scolded by his superiors and then forced into safe custody by Judge "Minty". Franco in his own turn receives a bollocking from Rocco [Paolo Poiret] who is the leader of the terrorists fraction that blew up the conference. But all is not lost as the people funding their actions – the corrupted officials that is - tell them that there’s a getaway arranged for them.

It becomes apparent that there’s a leak in the organisation when valuable pieces of information are finding there way to the wrong hands but Commissioner Rolandi finds a lead through the glasses that Franco lost in his struggle with the portiere at the hotel before the blast – yes, Franco tried to warn everyone of the bomb, but more on that later – and starts getting a lead on Franco. After an awkward crossing of paths in the evidence room Di Federico orders Rolandi to stay away from the case and stop interfering with it. Rolandi suspects that Di Federico is covering something up and that he contrary to popular beliefs is involved in a political corruption, Di Federico in his turn suspects that Rolandi has a part in the crimes and is hiding valuable evidence. It’s a tense table that’s being set for sure. Going head to head with the notorious Di Federico, Rolandi starts a race against time to solve the case before someone takes out the most wanted man in Italy – Franco…

Killer Cop is a pretty damned good reflection on how the Italian public looked at their country at the time. There was a lot of politically themed activity and a lot of corruption in the country and obviously filmmakers where going to tap into that. Within the Giallo sphere it’s quite common that policemen and detectives are portrayed as pretty incompetent characters, hence forcing the plot device of amateur sleuth into taking personal action. The directors and screenwriters of many movies at this point in time where not only coming up with some great movies, but also flirting with their audiences and merely projecting onto the screens what the audiences already thought. This is also one reason why many of the Poliziotteschi deal with themes of corruption and dishonest officials, which also generates the strong protagonist characters that take law in their own hands, either as a vigilante outside of the law, or that one hard headed cop who won’t do as his superiors tell him. But remember for every badass cop, there’s an even worse villain.

There’s also a frequent pessimism found in the genre, and many of them end with he protagonist either being forced to leave the force (by own or superior hand) to meet his goals (taking out the antagonists) or not being able to close the case due to that rotted core of corruption that imperfects the authorities.

Killer Cop is a real gem of a movie that has a pretty interesting script by Gianfranco Galligarich, who based it all on a story by Mario Bregni. The same Bregni who later produced Lamberto Bava’s Body Puzzle 1992. Galligarich who opened so strong with Sergio Sollima’s Città Violenta [The Family] 1970 starring Charles Bronson and Telly Savalas, and then La Polizia ha le mani legate, spent the rest of his career writing for TV serials, among them Duccio Tessari’s Nata d’amore (Born to Love) 1984, and never really wrote a piece as strong and powerful as La Polizia ha le mani legate again. This is a shame, because the movie is a fascinating showcase of politically laden themes, empathetic characters and strong narrative, and I’d have loved to see more of his work in other genres from this time period.

This is the kind of role that Claudio Cassinelli nails, and he gives a great performance as the honest cop Matteo Ronaldi here. Arthur Kennedy – perhaps suffering from yet another typecasting as the grumpy old man who will make sure at any means that justice is served – also gives a damned good performance, except for when he tries to show some kind of remorse for Luigi’s fate which he had a direct hand in. Supporting cast get the job done, Franco Fabrizi who starred against Cassinelli as a sleazy photographer in Massimo Dallamano’s brilliant What Have They Done to Your Daughters 1974, and would go on to even grimmer parts in Aldo Lado’s L’ultimo treno della notte (Night Train Murders) 1975 is highly enjoyable as the somewhat clumsy Luigi who does bring a lot of sympathy to his character. But the one that perhaps stands out the most is Bruno Zanin’s Franco – the remorseful terrorist.

This is where the script get’s interesting, as there’s a complexity and honesty to the characters that most often is lacking in the Poliziotteschi genre. Most commonly the cops are hard as nails, and simply kick ass for the law, and the villains are sadistic bastards who bust everyone’s chops as they make life a living hell for everyone but themselves. Killer Cop finds a whole bunch of characters evoking empathy. Cassinelli obviously as he’s the good guy and makes sure to make the "villains" pay when it becomes personal – but in his quest for vengeance, he goes past the law and takes matters into his own hands, forcing a change in character even if it does take place outside of the movies time space. Kennedy – who even though he really doesn’t have a change in character stays true to his reputation and doesn’t budge. He’s still a honourable untouchable good guy who won’t take a bribe, even if his ways are harsh. You can not help but feeling empathy for Luigi, the cop who’s afraid of guns, the reason why he’s been degraded, and also the reason that he end’s up in trouble when he cramps as Franco pulls his gun on him during their chase. But as mentioned, Franco is the one who is most fascinating as he frequently shows remorse for his actions. He tries to warn everyone off when the bomb in the hotel is about to go off, he leaves the note of apology scribbled on the newspaper reporting on the many deaths in the bomb blast, he stops and helps the old man he bumps into when running from Luigi pick up his things and on and on. There’s an interesting depth to the character that you obviously feel empathy for. This is also strengthened by Ronaldi’s, and Di Federico desire to bring him in alive, as his life, and the information he holds – the solution to the crime- is more valuable than the old “a good villain is a dead villain”. His life holds value, and he automatically becomes more than just a random bad guy.

There’s a great Moby Dick reference that runs through the movie – an obvious metaphor for going up against the unseen antagonist - in this case the corrupted superiors. There’s also a small recurrent gag where Ronaldi is constantly hassled for driving a huge Mercedes, and not the usual little Alfa Romeo’s or fiats that they usually race up and down those tight Italian backstreets.

Stelvio Cipriani’s score! What a damned great score, a wonderful flow, strong keys and heavy bass lines. Sometimes soft, sometimes menacing, it’s easily the best of all Cipriani’s work, a definitive piece that should be in every fan of EuroCult soundtracks collection.

So to wrap things up – Killer Cop is possibly one of the most underestimated Poliziotteschi films in the rotted corruption niche. Great acting, fascinating characters, a sometimes cryptic narrative, but at the same time intriguing as we seldom know more of the corruption than those fighting it, which adds to getting into the same mind set as them. Wonderfull cinematography by Marcello Gatti who shot Paolo Cavara's La tarantola del ventre nero (Black Belly of the Tarantula) 1971 and Gillo Pontecorvo's La battaglia di Algeri (The Battle of Algiers) 1966, the fantastic Cipriani soundtrack and excellent pacing quite possibly make this one of Luciano Ercoli’s absolute best films.

Image:

Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

Stereo 2.0, English dubbed dialogue.

And if you still haven’t seen it, it’s available at The Giallo Goblin.

Now enjoy that awesome theme by the great Stelvio Cipriani.

The Magnificent Dare Devil

The Magnificent Dare Devil
Original Title: Troppo rischio per un uomo solo
Directed by: Luciano Ercoli
Italy, 1973
Thriller, 110min

I like the films of Luciano Ercoli. I like the ones that he produced, and even more, the ones he directed. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ercoli only ever directed some eight movies, and produced almost a dozen, and then mysteriously vanished from the industry, of which you can read more here, but I still consider his petite catalogue of work among my favourites of Italian genre cinema.

Unlike many other of his peers, he wasn’t coming off a background as a newspaper critic and neither did he have any family bonds to the industry. Instead Ercoli was a student of Law and was supposedly to be a lawyer. But finding that he grew bored with the world of academia, Ercoli was lucky enough to get a break from a friend of his who worked in the movies.

Stepping into the world of cinema as a production assistant on Primo Zeglio’s Capitan Fantasma (Captain Phantom) 1953, Ercoli found his new passion and progressed rapidly from production assistant to assisting the director, to editing and then finally getting behind it all and setting up as a producer. As a producer he made a few movies with Totò (the Italian

comedian who can easiest be compared to Jacques Tati and who also starred in Lucio Fulci’s first future I Ladri (The Thieves) 1959) before moving into the Spaghetti Western genre where he produced three movies for Duccio Tessari (his two Ringo Westerns, both 1965 and the action thriller Kiss Kiss… Bang Bang 1966). After a couple more Westerns it was time due for Ercoli to move out from behind the desk, roll up his sleeves and take on the part of director.

This is where the string of Gialli movies that I enjoy so much starts with the interesting Le foto proibite di una singora per bene (The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion) 1970. For the rest of his eight movie run all his films would in one way or another use the traits and move within the Poliziotteschi and Gialli genre.

The Magnificent Dare Devil was shot between the Giallo La morte accarezza a mezzanotte (Death Walks at Midnight) 1972 and the gothic horror Il figlio della spolta viva (roughly The Son of the Dead is Alive) 1974 under the pseudonym André Colbert, and just like it’ predecessors uses some of the traits belonging to those genres. Starting out with a great sequence at a Formula 1 track in the UK where even great legends like Jackie Stewart and Emerson Fittipaldi are seen, you would think that there’s a chance that it might be movie that will take place in the high-speed world of Formula 1. But enjoy those fast cars as long as you can, because within ten minutes, after a terrific stock footage crash, the movie takes us away from the track and into a devious web of life on the run, as race car superstar Rudy Patti [Guiliano Gemma who starred in several of the movies Ercoli produced, and was Ringo] is framed for a murder he didn't commit.

Rudi comes away from the pileup without a scratch and makes plans and celebrates with his best friend and mechanic Piero [Ventantino Ventantini – Antonio Margheritti’s Apocalypse domain (Cannibal Apocalypse) 1980, Lucio Fulci’s Paura nella città dei morti viventi (City of the Living Dead) 1980, and Umberto Lenzi’s Cannibal Ferox 1981]. During the party Rudi gets a phone call from his diplomat girlfriend Nina [Nieves Navarro or here Susan Scott] who he later meets at the airport – watch the matching luggage - and they go back to her place in London for a good old romp. The happy couple pass out from their immense lovemaking and when Rudi wakes up again, there’s a full blown party going on. Uncomfortable with the situation, he tries to leave, but Nina convinces him to stay and have a drink… An unfortunate choice as the drink is laced by a menacing bloke and handed on to Rudi, needless to say e rapidly becomes profoundly intoxicated and leaves the party. Unable to drive his car that he earlier left outside Nina's flat – in a no parking zone – he’s given a ride home by flamboyant homosexual Donald [Giancarlo Zanetti] in his pink VW. With no memory of last night Rudi steps outside to fetch his yellow suitcase from the back of his car, but the car is missing and when he goes up to the nearby police officer to report his car as stolen, he’s nicked and stuffed in the back of a police car… arrested for a murder he has no recollection of committing!

There are several subplots that play throughout the movie, one is the murder and then there’s the missing suitcase. Rudi is the prime suspect for the murder, and all evidence points right at him. At the same time he is convinced that if he only finds his yellow suitcase – the one identical to Nina’s, he can prove his innocence. But as there was an obvious mix up with the suitcases at the airport, there are also two rival organisations searching for the suitcase – as they are certain that it contains a large shipment of heroin – Nina’s been a naughty girl, using her diplomatic immunity for smuggling. So as Rudi – who’s assisted in his dramatic escape from jail by one of the two organisations without knowing which one, it’s all part of yet another subplot – who and why – is not only trying to prove his innocence and stay one step ahead of the police who are searching for him, he also has to stay way ahead of the two rivals that are trying their damndest to lay their hands on him and that missing suit case.

The two fractions, one run by insurance magnate Brauner [Michael Forrest – who dubbed loads of classic Italian pieces, and has for the last fifteen years been doing loads of video game and anime voice work] and Mitridates [Mario Erpichini – from Umberto Lenzi’s Spasmo 1974 and Enzo G. Castellari’s La polizia incrimina la legge assolve (The Marseilles Connection) 1973] are all after Rudi’s suitcase as they want the contents, and he’s stuck in the middle trying to clear his name.

The Magnificent Dare Devil may not be a Gialli or a pure Poliziotteschi even though Inspector Forrest [Carlo Gentil, another Ercoli regular] does his best to play a tough cop, but it does have a script by the great Ernesto Gastaldi who worked with Ercoli on The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion and La morte cammina con I tacchi alti (Death Walks on High Heels) 1971. And that script is a damned fine piece of work. The movie moves fast, has a fair amount of action laden fight sequences, plenty of car chases that ended up entitling stunt co-ordinator Rèmy Julienne with his own credit in the opening titles. Julienne is that legendary stunt man who has worked on everything from Lucio Fulci’s action comedy Operazione San Pietro 1967, Alberto De Martino’s Blazing Magnum 1976 to John Glen’s A View to a Kill 1985 (remember that stunt with the Renault, the one that gets stuck in the tree… that’s him), John Woo’s Once a Thief 1991, and Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code 2006.

Gastaldi’s script – written together with Ercoli - is pretty logic and nothing really sticks out as a quick fix to move things into a new direction, which some Gialli tend to do. Instead we find an intriguing plot to keep you interested in how Rudi is going to get out of the mess he finds himself treading deeper and deeper into. I mentioned earlier that most of Ercoli’s films use Gialli or Poliziotteschi traits. I choose to see those three Gialli as his learning the ropes and keeping what he liked from them. It’s easy to see Rudi as the amateur detective, the prime suspect attempting to clear his name and catch the real culprits of the piece as he works his way through he narrative. His mate Piero is an obvious comic relief, not that the movie needs it, and you never know until the last moment who the killer really is.

The worst thing with The Magnificent Dare Devil is the soundtrack, as there are really only a few tracks used throughout the entire movie. Giampaolo Chiti only ever scored three movies, and it’s painfully obvious as the same melodies keep returning over and over again. But never the less, The Magnificent Dare Devil is a pleasant little action thriller that get’s the job done, has some suspenseful moments, never feels like a waste of time, packs a good mystery tone, delivers a few good laughs.

Image:

Widescreen 16:9

Audio:

Stereo 2.0

If you feel an urge to see it, you can get it from The Giallo Goblin!

The Secret Killer

The Secret Killer

Original Title: Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro

Aka: Eyeball

Aka Wide Eyed

in the Dark

Directed by : Umberto Lenzi

Italy /Spain 1975

Giallo, 89min

Distributed by: Marketing Film

Story:

A group of American tourists in Spain find themselves having a terrible holiday when a homicidal manic with a passion for chopping out the eyes of the victims strikes among them. Tension and paranoia set in as they try to figure out who is stalking and killing them, and everyone is fast on the hand to point out a assailant.

Me:

Umberto Lenzi, a fantastic director to say the least. I usually say that he’s mostly know for his cannibal movies [Man from Deep River 1972, Eaten Alive 1980, the infamous Make Them Die Slowly 1981] and the rather cheesy, but ever so atmospherical Nightmare City from 1980. But in my opinion I have to put my money on his decent amount of Gialli and Poliziotteschi which are so much more superior to his gut-muncher movies, and if I was ever forced to write a top ten Gialli list, Umberto Lenzi’s splendid Seven Blood-Stained Orchids from 1972 would definitely be one of the selected few. But today I cast my left eye and thoughts on The Secret Killer (or Red Cats in a Glass Maze as the original title really translates as) which Lenzi directed in 1975.

Obviously there is a reasonable amount of doubt as one sits down to a Gialli. Will it be one of the great ones, or will it be a mixed up jumble like so many other have been. The Secret Killer is quite often refered to as a mediocre Giallo which lack

s plot, a critique often aimed at the Giallo genre. A critique that definitely is unjust, as the plot definitely is there; Who is the killer, and what is the killer’s modus operandi and added to that there are all the cryptic subplots that shave the viewer searching high and low for the right answer. And unlike so many other detective or criminal movies you can almost never predict the outcome of the Giallo as it plays with a completely different set of rules opposed to convention, which is why they still fascinate audiences once again on digital media.

The Secret Killer sees a band of American tourists in Spain being driven round and shown the sights in your general touristy manner. At one stop Reverend Bronson [George Rigaud, who’s face will be familiar to genre fans from Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks on High Heels 1971, Lucio Fulci’s A Lizard in a Womans Skin 1971, One on Top of the Other 1969, Sergio Martino’s All the Colors of the Dark 1972 and Lenzi’s Knife of Ice 1972] is the first to reach the scene after a young woman is brutally stabbed by an offscreen killer who for a change wears red gloves instead of the genre trait black gloves. The cops, Inspector Tudela [Andrés Mejnuto], who only has a week before retirement, and his young assistant Lara go to the autopsy, where Lara drops the classic line “Excuse me Doctor, are you saying that the killer is a sadist?” to which the Doctor replies “I wouldn’t really doubt it!” That’s the sort of tickling dialogue Lenzi and co-writer Félix Tusell come up with in this fine example of the Gialli. Félix Tusell was originally a producer and went on to continue producing movies after writing the screenplay for The Secret Killer, and that’s kind of a shame, as The Secret Killer has a lot going for it as I will point out shortly.

During the autopsy and later towards the end, when they know who their main suspect is, you will also see a policeman played by Fulvio Mingozzi, who frequently had bit parts as detectives, policemen or agents in almost all the great genre pieces. Do check out his resume, it’s an impressive list to say the least!

Anyhow after questioning the Reverend, setting up the first of many red herrings, the cops leave and the group of tourists continue their holiday. During this set up we are introduced to Paulette Stone [Martine Brochard, who had previously been in a few Nunsploitation flicks and Sergio Martino’s Poliziotteschi Violent Professionals 1973.] the secretary and former mistress of Marc Burton [John Richardson, who starred in Mario Bava’s Black Sunday in 1960 and later Martino’s Torso 1973]. Burton, who mysteriously arrives at the scene of the crime to comfort Paulette and try to swoon her back into his arms. But Paulette won’t be seduced so easily, at least not until Marc is divorced from his wife!

This sequence introduces the major mulligan of the plot; in the very opening after the credits we see a woman in an airport rebooking her flight to New York for a flight to Barcelona instead. We will pretty soon realise that this woman is Alma [Marta May], Marc’s wife, and our knowledge that she took a flight to Barcelona definitely sets her up as our prime suspect, especially as the next victim of the gloved killer is one of the tourists. The killer is moving in on the group!

Keeping the confusion high and pointing fingers in the wrong direction is frequently used throughout the first half of the movie, we learn of further connections between the group in Barcelona and Marc’s wife Alma. Gale Alvarado [Silvia Solar] tells friends in the group that she used to go to school with Marc’s wife, and that she doesn’t think Alma would like to learn about his romances with his secretary on the side. Marc gets a note from Reverend Bronson that his wife called and has taken up residence at the Hotel Presidente on the other side of town. As you see there are major forces working towards pointing out Alma as the gloved killer, but do we really want to believe that our leading lady is the killer? Red herrings are renown to shove the audience in the wrong way!

The second killing, the murder of Peggy is a wonderful sequence that takes place inside an amusement park ghost train ride. Filled with creepy masks and sudden shock effects the killer strikes and once again chops out the left eye of the victim. Once again the cops round up the group of tourists and start going though their suspects. This gathering of the group could have been a pace killer if it had not had been used in an interesting way which works in favour of the narrative. Every time the group are assembled after a killing, they start pointing fingers at each other, hence leading us on and planting new red herrings. After the murder of Peggy, there are several threads at play, and Marc goes to the Hotel his wife is supposed to be located at, obviously she isn’t there, but Marc finds a bloodied dagger in the suite which generates the first of a series of flashbacks related to Marc and Alma. He has returning flashbacks to a situation where he found Alma fainted in their garden with the same knife he found in the hotel in her right hand and an eyeball in her left… he can’t put his finger on it, but something is wrong with the image, and his is a subplot that will later have great importance.

It’s quite fair to say that from this point on Marc becomes the primary protagonist of the story, and even tough we don’t completely free him from suspicion, he will be the character who leads us through this mysterious Giallo. As viewers familiar with the genre will know, you can never be determined until the last scene has played out, these movies constantly pull the rug from under our feet and in some cases even the most obvious becomes the opposite in the flash of a knife.

The finest example of the finger pointing occurs after a young woman outside the group is murdered as she feeds her pigs on a farm they are visiting. There are several leads pointing to various members of the group and a great montage showing the whereabouts of our favourite suspects enhances this. The murderer stalks and kills the farm girl and the soon inspector, cursing that he has to solve this case before retiring and handing his position over to his young assistant, comes to the scene yet again. But then the splendid twist is that as the police question those we favour as prime suspects, they flip it around and point towards Paulette, our secondary protagonist. Once again, we have been following the tale through the narrative of Paulette and Marc, and it couldn’t be Paulette donning the red gloves as that would be illogical wouldn’t it. Or would it?

Burton learns that Alma is to catch a flight back out of Barcelona and races to the airport to confront her, but in a last minute decision Alma cancels her flight ticket and once again she slips through Marc’s fingers leaving him non the wiser. Although he does encounter Lisa Sanders [Mirta Miller] a photographer who is part of their little group and uses ever possible moment and location to photograph her girlfriend Nabila [Ines Pellegrini, who starred in a few Pasolini movies, including the infamous Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom]. Marc asks her to keep her professional eye open for Alma, and to photograph her if she sees her in Barcelona. He then goes back to Paulette and tells her about his suspicion that Alma is in town, killing all these people in an attempt to frame him!

Needless to say Lisa becomes the next victim in a beautiful sequence that easily is among the most finest of the genre. Antonio Millán’s cinematography peaks here as composition and pacing climaxes in a stunning sequence utilising deep focus and vivid colour schemes. I could go as far as referring to his as the must see scene of the movie. Nabila walks into the apartment and see’s Lisa’s body, screams waking the rest of the group, once again invoking a wonderful series of mis-en-scene where we are presented with possible suspects. At this point we have a fair idea of our own suspects, but we need to go yet another round before it is all exposed. The group take a trip to Stiges (yes Sitges of the legendary horror and fantasy festival) but as a change the group is separated in yet another cunning subplot to lead us astray. Nablia is in hospital following the attack, and Reverend Bronson stays in Barcelona to visit her, Marc has to check some last details of Alma’s whereabouts, and this is obviously when the killer strikes again! This time it’s a failure, and Nabila escapes once again, but the cops are in the killers trail, and soon their prime suspect will be captured.

Eventually Marc is too close to the killer for his own good and the police, persuaded that he just tried to murder the last victim and not chance the killer as he states himself, take him into custody. Once again I point out the common misunderstanding that Gialli have no plot or comprehensive storyline and only use cheap tricks. But here you go, evidence proving the opposite, in the autopsy scene, the doctor pointed out that the wounds where made by a right handed person which is later in the end of the movie proves a possible suspect to be innocent!

All good things come to an end and even so The Secret Killer. The murderer is exposed and the motif for slicing out eyeballs of the victims too and bizarrely enough there’s even a happy ending for one of the lead protagonists to wrap things up nice and tidy. Ironically there are several small clues and questions that get revealed during the final scenes. Answers to suggestions and questions which I would think may be seen more coherently by an audience perhaps not to familiar with the genre. I say ironic because with knowledge of the genre and the “anyone can be the killer” twists that frequent the Gialli, it’s a rarity that the most obvious killer is there right under your nose.

The Secret Killer has a fabulous score by the late Bruno Nicolai, who composed some of the finest scores ever set to Gialli movies, This one much in the same suave style of his previous scores for Guiliano Carnimeo’s The Case of The Bloody Iris 1972, and Sergio Martino’s Your Vice Is A Closed Room and Only I Have the Key also from1972. But on the down side, this fantastic score is misused and brutally wasted on this film, or perhaps overused is a better word as it keeps coming in every now and again without any regards to what mood the scene is playing for what so ever. Sometimes it’s just plain annoying and distracts from the narrative. But on it’s own it’s a great soundtrack.

Image:

2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

Dolby Digital Mono English, Dolby Digital 5.1 German, Dolby Digital Mono German, no subtitles available.

Extras:

The theatrical trailer, filmographies for Umberto Lenzi, John Richardson, Martine Brochard and Ines Pellegrini, a slide show of stills and promotional materials. Finally a bunch of trailers for other Marketing Film’s releases, but nothing of real genre interest unless you like your Hong-Kong actioners dubbed to German.

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.