The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion

The setting is Barcelona, a glamourous European destination typical of the jet set denizens of these Italian Detective Horrors. Trouble starts when our heroine Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is assaulted by a strange man (Simon Andreu) who threatens she will beg him to rape her when next they meet (a breach of taste served with the misogynistic flair typical of the genre), then runs away (!) When she tells her husband (Pier Paolo Capponi), he naturally wants to call the police, but she says no: "All they do is make you fill out forms" (!) Well, in a case like this, lady, I think maybe you might make an exception and fill out a form for a change, just this one time. But she doesn't, of course, otherwise we wouldn't have a movie. She does, indeed, regret not making that call, as she is sucked down deeper and deeper into the gaslighting whirlpool of her stalker/rapist's devising, blackmailing her that he will show her husband the eponymous photos of the title. Her shoulder to cry on through this is Dominique (Susan Scott), a happy-go-lucky porn photo model (she sends the photos to Copenhagen for sale), a free spirit whose appetite for sex goes far beyond the job. Off the job, she sure likes to wear clothes, lots of them, and both of them galavant around town like a couple of high fashion Barbies . Each scene in new outfits of the most outrageously fabulous 70's fashions: hats, gloves, shoes-and wigs (!)-- to match (another convention of the genre). And I mean Every scene: After one last heart-to-heart sob session, Dominique finally convinces Minou to tell her husband everything. She tells her they'll go tell him RIGHT NOW!-but not until after they've changed into entirely different outfits, restyled wigs, and wiped away the tears to fortify their make-up, as is how they show up at his place in the scene immediately following. It's pretty obvious pretty early on who the real Bad Guy has to be, though there are a couple of clever red herrings to try to trick you. What's fun are the impossibly outrageous contrivances (also a convention) that wend their way to a ridiculously satisfying conclusion, and the particularly salacious aspects of this plot are notably original in that regard.

There, I said "outrageous" again, but Over-The-Top Outrageousness is really what a good giallo is all about. Enjoy.

This film is rather unusual for a giallo. It's well-filmed but not particularly stylized. The plot is rather strange, but generally makes sense. It has no graphic violence, and although it has plenty of perverse sexual situations, it barely has even the circumspect nudity of the earliest Caroll Baker gialli ("Sweet Body of Deborah", "Orgasmo", etc.). A society woman (played by Dagmar Lassender) is nearly raped on the beach by a sinister man who tells her that her industrialist husband has murdered one of his colleagues. The man blackmails her into sleeping with him by threatening to expose her husband, and then blackmails her again with graphic photos of their affair. The husband meanwhile is himself involved with her sexually voracious best friend (played by Nieves Navarro aka Susan Scott), and the whole thing might be some kind of plot to drive her mad.

This movie works mainly because of the acting. Dagmar Lassander was one of the better actresses to appear in gialli, second only to Edwige Fenech and the aforementioned Carroll Baker at playing these hysterical, beleaguered victim roles. Even better is Nieves Navarro as her sex-hungry best friend who has pornographic pictures taken of herself and says at one point, after Lassender's character confides about her near rape, that she would have "adored being violated" (there's a kind of refreshingly politically incorrectness to the ridiculous dubbed dialogue of these movies). She is such a dubious and ambiguous character that even at the end it is not clear whether she is a loyal friend to the protagonist or an unexposed villain.

The director, Luciano Ercoli, is the Italian husband of former Spanish model Navarro. He made several other gialli, all featuring his wife, but this is probably the one where he made the best use of her. He is no Dario Argento or even Sergio Martino, but his direction is certainly adequate. The screenwriter, Ernesto Gastaldi, contributed scripts for any number of these pictures and he puts forth a pretty decent and suspenseful one here. This movie is kind of hard to find right now, but it is worth seeing if you like these kind of movies.

Ever after giallo writer Ernesto Gastaldi teams up with producer-director Luciano Ercoli for this Forbidden Photos... Set in 1970, this early giallo is nicely shot in Techniscope. No murders, just plain old blackmail story and some shy eroticism. Sultry Dagmar Lassander is at her best and Susan Scott is also fab as the devious friend.

The plot is totally implausible but the suspense works til the end...

It's always surprising to see in these 70's gialli how the women look incredibly sexy and how the men are all ugly...projections of the writers/directors fantasies, maybe? Anyhoo... not boring at all, funny at some point -check out the dresses and the hats, it's a blast!-, not necessary but worth a look.

My old buddy Rob, who knows more about psychotronic movies than anybody I know, was the one who turned me on to one of my favorite film experiences of 2006, "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh" (1970), so when he recently raved about another giallo thriller from 1970 that he'd just seen, "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion," I made a mental note to check it out as quickly as possible. And boy, am I glad I did! In "Forbidden Photos," Dagmar Lassander plays the part of Minou, a woman who is being sexually blackmailed by a man who has incriminating evidence of a murder her hunky businessman husband supposedly committed. Lassander looks a bit like a redheaded Debra Messing here, and her character is indeed quite the mess even when we first meet her, smoking and drinking too much and popping tranquilizers the way I'd pop Pretzel Nuggets. Needless to say, the events she must go through in this sexy, stylized thriller push her ever closer to the cracking point. Anyway, while gorehounds may be a tad disappointed by the lack of extreme violence in this picture, there are abundant joys to be found. Luciano Ercoli's direction is impeccable; the script by Ernesto Gastaldi (who seems to have written every other giallo that I see!) is one made to keep you guessing (although, plotwise, the film is much more straightforward than many other gialli); and Susan Scott, playing Minou's best friend, is remarkably sexy. But the single best element of this picture, for me, is yet another superb score by the maestro, Ennio Morricone. Isn't it remarkable how many hundreds of outstanding film scores this man is responsible for? I'm just in awe of this friggin' dude! I promise that you'll have this film's catchy theme song bouncing around in your head for days...and won't be forgetting this little giallo picture too quickly, either. Thanks, Blue Underground, and thanks again, Rob!

THE FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION (Luciano Ercoli - Italy/Spain 1970).

Luciano Ercoli can be called many things. He might not be the most innovative director, but he definitely is the king of fashion, with all the women dressed up in some truly outrageous '70s outfits. His muse Nieves Navarro in particular parades through the film in some truly skimpy outfits, resulting in unintentional campyness. When talking camp, watch the dancing scene in the club in the beginning of the film with Dagmar Lassander. In God's heaven, this is one tacky dancing scene we're watching. All the men are in suits, the women are outrageously dressed, the music is a hallucinate boggle of easy-listening tunes James Last wouldn't even dare to come up with and the way they dance (how do you even dance to this kind of music?) is truly a perfect showcase of tacky '70s euro-nonsense. Guilty. Case closed. Still, it's a complete riot when watching it now and that's probably why I enjoy these films so much.

In all his three Gialli, FORBIDDEN PHOTOS, DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, Ercoli presents his story from a female perspective, but they are presented as utterly helpless when dealing with the various male perpetrators and chauvinist male detectives surrounding them. Even husbands or boyfriends, or any male capable of help turns out to be just as malevolent as all the blackmailers, wife-beaters and murderers. Nudity level and body count are low, but as a mystery it's actually much more effective than most Gialli, stylishly filmed, well acted and permeated with intrigue, blackmail and fetishistic violence, supported by a groovy Ennio Morricone score. Although graphic violence is restricted to a minimum, Dagmar Lassander has to undergo quite the ordeal with a mire of sedatives, alcohol and sleazy sex and strange conversations with the assertive bisexual figure of Nieves Navarro. She repeatedly keeps hearing from all male characters: "Get undressed!"

Just imagine this film, which was extremely obscure and hardly ever seen until its DVD-release in June 2006, sold almost 638,000 tickets in Spain alone according to the IMDb, probably largely due to the appeal of Spanish-born Nieves Navarro (over 2 million admissions in Europe is my guess). Blue Underground presents the film without an Italian audiotrack, but - surprise, surprise - the English dubbing is actually quite good now, which is always a major bonus.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10