Killer ohne Gesicht

Before Dario Argento's BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE changed the face of gialli in 1970, most from the late '60s (especially those of Umberto Lenzi & Carroll Baker) were psychological, "bloodless" erotic thrillers that relied on murder, sex, and DIABOLIQUE-like plot twists but 1968's KILLER WITHOUT A FACE was an exception in that it blended mid-60s "Barbara Steele/haunted castle" horror with the kind of proto-giallo crime thrillers ex-pat actor John Drew Barrymore used to make in the early '60s.

After her beloved cousin falls (?) from the tower of "Nottingham Castle" one stormy night in the pre-credit opening, Barbara, the mentally unstable mistress of the manor, hires a handsome architect to re-do the castle top-to-bottom but her husband warns him that she has psychotic fits every now and then as various castle inhabitants (a barrister, a Mrs. Danvers-like housekeeper, maids, and other sundry folk) start getting picked off one by one with a gun that has an extraordinarily long silencer. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's a curse on the castle ever since an ancestor was burned at the stake centuries before. Is Barbara responsible -or is something more insidious -maybe even supernatural- going on?

Filmed in atmospheric black & white with a jazzy score, the film can also boast Jess Franco favorite Janine Reynaud as a slinky femme fatale and Lawrence Tierney as a mute Igor-type servant. I love Larry in American Film Noir but, reely, what's he doing in this -wasn't he supposedly reduced to driving a hansom cab around Manhattan at the time?

The Italian giallo's usual xenophobia's on display here as well- the depraved goings-on occur outside Italy (England this time) and the heroine actually recuperates from a breakdown in sunny Italy to restore her health. When she goes back to England, supposedly recovered, depravity sets in again and the murders resume.

The print for this rare giallo is in pretty rough shape, but it's a rare giallo! They all must be watched. Although made in 1968, this one feels more like a throwback to the old Gothic horror days of 1964, what with the castle and the mute servants and the superstitious maids and what not. And I've already seen someone fall off this particular castle in another film (A for Assassin, perhaps).

And so it came to pass that Lady McDonald of Nottingham Castle was beset by mental illness and looked after by her husband in the castle with some other suspects. Sigh. No wonder they had to introduce boobs and blood to the gialli because by this point the plots and settings are getting pretty tedious.

Someone's killing the maids amongst other and you've got all the red herrings to choose from and the outside who gets caught up in the mystery. It's not the best example of this film but it does pick up a bit (notwithstanding the scene were Lady McDonald discuss where she wants to put furniture in a room -thanks for that bit) and there's a fair old pile of corpses by the end. It's not hard to figure it out though.

The dippy maid Betty was pretty good though.

When it comes to rare and forgotten gialli I want to see them all.So my next choice was "Assassino Senza Volto" aka "The Killer Without a Face".A series of murders happen in an old Italian castle.The unknown killer dispatches his victims by shooting them to death with a pistol.Barbara,the unhinged owner is the chief suspect.But not everything is quite as it seems...The film is set in the Balsorano Castle and is shot in expressionistic black-and-white.The action is pretty dull,albeit there are some mildly suspenseful stalking scenes.There are also a few interesting visuals on display here and there but on the whole "The Killer Without a Face" is far too slow moving to be of interest to most genre fans.5 out of 10.