A Black Veil for Lisa

Massimo Dallamano made the great Bandidos and the also great What Have You Done To You Daughters, but here takes things a bit too laid back and therefore we end up with an okay giallo that could have used a nice kick in the arse plot wise.

It's still interesting enough, mind you. You have a detective (the almost immortal John Mills) who is investigating a series of knife murders in Hamburg (this is where the black gloved killer comes in and this isn't the last giallo set in Hamburg either). The problem is, the detective has this young, hot, young, hot, sexy, young, mysterious, hot, young, tepid, young, hot, young wife who had possible links to a criminal past but the detective's totally over that and he's only phoning her a hundred times a day to see if she needs milk, right?

So we move from the giallo that has the 'who is the gloved killer?' plot to that other kind of giallo - the kind where you have no idea what everyone is up to until the last ten minutes. Most of the time those turn out to be the more entertaining giallo but we have just a bit too much in the old dialogue stakes here and less on the actual action.

Still, Dallamano's skills as a cinematographer shine through nice and bright, but for some reason the sleaze that sticks to his other films is missing here. It's still worth tracking down but isn't any lost classic or anything.

Not the wildest of gialli, if indeed, it really does qualify as one, but a most competent and engaging mystery. John Mills is surprisingly good as the ageing husband to the flirty Bond girl, Luciana Paluzzi and although the bad boy seems far too glamorous for the role, Robert Hoffman does well. Decent script, which always helps and what starts simply enough becomes far more involved as we progress. Indeed we quickly learn who the killer is but not why or just how many are involved. That Mills plays as an Englishman gives this a certain slant that helps make the film different from others of the time and though the music is somewhat flat, seems fitting enough for the drab location. I don't know where this was shot but it doesn't look like Italy so is perhaps Germany or even Austria. No stunning set pieces and the flashes of nudity seem added and likely to not be Paluzzi.

So few Euro directors have done more to exile themselves from the arthouse pantheon than Massimo Dallamano. His work is slick, trashy and stylish in the manner of a fashion supplement in one of the cheaper Sunday newspapers. Yet at least three of his films are compelling studies in morbid sexuality and erotic obsession. A Black Veil for Lisa is nowhere near as famous as Venus in Furs or Dorian Gray, but it's still an intriguing brew. Imagine a giallo version of Proust's La Prisonniere with sex, drugs and serial killings thrown into the mix.

Like the other two films, it has a protagonist whose physical beauty and sexual magnetism leave her immune to the qualms of everyday good behaviour. Lisa is played by Luciana Paluzzi - a voluptuous, flame-haired tigress who's best remembered as the bad girl in Thunderball. Like almost every Bond girl since Ursula Andress, she somehow failed to become a great star. Bitterly unjust, as Paluzzi in this film is a femme fatale to rival Rita Hayworth in Gilda. We can well understand the anxieties of her drab and dreary husband (John Mills) who obsessively polices her every move.

The mystery, of course, is why Lisa married this old dolt in the first place. Suspecting his wife of sleeping around, Mills commits a grave breach of professional ethics (he's a police inspector, no less) and blackmails a hunky hitman (Robert Hoffmann) to kill her. Naturally, Lisa and said hitman fall in love...and there are plenty more twists where that came from. A Black Veil for Lisa could never be mistaken for Art. Still, it's a potent reminder that Trash is often more fun!

Regarded by some cult cineastes as a relatively unsung Giallo stylist maestro, Massimo 'What Have They Done to Solange' Dallamano ably directed one of the earlier entries in the soon-to-be-blooming Gialli cycle. 'A Black Veil for Lisa' aka 'La Morte Non Ha Sesso' remains a tremendously engrossing, twist-laden 60s terror treat. Exploiting the prototypically menacing Giallo motif of darkly glistering, black gloved killer, it eschews much of the gruesome hysteria, providing a more sombre examination of debilitating paranoia, sexual infidelity and the toxic jealousies it inevitably engenders.

''A Black Veil for Lisa' has a gripping, Krimi-like narrative, wherein a slick, shadowy hit-man (Robert Hoffman)is hired by vicious drug dealers to bump off all those who might expose their malign activities. His executions come to the attention of troubled, increasingly paranoid Inspector, Franz Bulon (John Mills). Bulon's valiant investigations fatefully propose a coolly logical, devastatingly immoral solution to his marital torment! John Mills is on compellingly terse form as the cuckolded inspector, and, Robert Hoffman is sinfully suave as the blue-eyed libidinous hitman. The preternaturally luscious, dazzlingly beautiful starlet, Luciana Paluzzi making for memorably luminous eye candy! Doing little more than sultrily slink about in a salacious serenade of risqué regalia, this tantalizing auburn-haired temptress does it with an eye-boggling élan!

Maestro, Dallamano directs his engaging 60s Giallo with real cinematic verve, and the garotte taut narrative wickedly wends its thrilling way to a genuinely desperate, nerve-flayingly dramatic conclusion! Evocatively shot in picturesque Hamburg, 'A Black Veil for Lisa' remains a rewardingly refined late-night entertainment. This visually stylish, stiletto cool, psychologically tweaked thriller has credible performances and is all together cinematic. A Black Veil for Lisa's somewhat incongruent obscurity belies an engrossing, beauteous-looking Martini-age Giallo classic!

German-Italian Giallo with Luciana Paluzzi and Robert Hoffmann

Inspector Franz Bülow (John Mills, 1908-2005, who was often cast as the husband of much younger women in those years) investigates a mysterious series of murders in his native Hamburg, in which a killer with black gloves is up to mischief. He is played by Robert Hoffmann, who was born in Salzburg in 1939 and got his start in the Roman film industry after the West German shocker "Again the Ringer".

But back to the plot of the film: In his private life, the aging inspector is a real lucky guy. He has recently been married to the beautiful Lisa (Luciana Paluzzi / who was born in Rome in 1937 and remains the most beautiful Bond villain since "Thunderball"), who is also a lot younger than her husband. He is driven by jealousy and mistrust. He constantly controls his wife - out of fear that she might cheat on him. Paranoia taken to the extreme leads to an unforeseen discharge...

Death knows no gender, according to the original Italian title, is a masterful game of confusion by Massimo Dallamano, which was released in cinemas by Titanus. Beautiful images of Hamburg in the late 1960s are contrasted with black gloves and yellow tulips.

The effects of hashish consumption are also translated into images and blur the boundaries between delusion and reality.

Elements of the crime film, the giallo and the relationship drama are mixed together. Great filmmaking and excellent actors make this film an enigmatic pleasure.