Il vizio ha le calze nere

Reflections in Black is a good name for a movie. And this one has a tantalising poster too if you bother to seek it out. But you know that old saying about never judging a book by its cover…

This is certainly one of the least impressive examples of the Italian giallo that I have seen. It was directed by Tano Cimorosa, who also plays the diminutive detective with the 'tache. Cimorosa will be familiar to a lot of you from his memorable appearance in Renato Polselli's brutally sleazy giallo Delirium (1972). Well this movie sure has its fair share of sleaze as well but it's a much less entertaining affair. On the one hand it certainly contains many of the giallo conventions such as a convoluted mystery, violent murders and a healthy amount of nudity; on the other hand it completely lacks any sense of style. As a result it merely comes off as rough edged and at best semi-interesting. It stars giallo regulars such as Dagmar Lassander and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart but they aren't really given a lot to do.

It should be pointed out that the copy I saw was pan and scan and 72 minutes, with poor sound. Perhaps if I saw it in a better version my opinion would improve, as I do believe that there is a 90 minute cut out there. But my main feeling is that the basic ingredients of this one are not terrific no matter the version.

Rock bottom! My obsession to track down obscure and completely unknown Italian Gialli movies has hit rock bottom with the search for "Reflections in Black". I absolutely wanted to own this relatively late entry in my favorite cult/exploitation subgenre, because it supposedly is one of the gorier, filthier, and sleazier Gialli out there. Well, I can't confirm nor deny whether this reputation is truthful, since the version I found was nearly unwatchable. "Reflections in Black" is - to my knowledge - only available on a bootleg with terrible sound and picture quality. Most of the time, the screen was so blurry that the faces were unidentifiable. The DVD faltered frustratingly often, and the awful English dubbing was regularly interrupted by long stretches of footage that were in the original soundtrack in Italian (and thus incomprehensible for me).

During "Reflections in Black" I often wondered why I am doing this. There are so many great movies out there, in fancy and highly qualitative BluRay releases, but I spent my time and money on stinking old sleaze-movies that nobody even bothers to restore.

The film itself is also very mundane and derivative, even by mid-to-late 70s Giallo standards. The plot revolves around beautiful and almost always naked women getting brutally killed by a "mysterious" figure dressed in black and waving around a razorblade. The police investigation is dire and slow-moving, and it takes the coppers an awfully long time to figure out all the murdered women were having lesbian affaires with a married countess.

What's so upsetting about "Reflections in Black" is that the unknown and inexperienced director Tano Cimarosa (who also plays one of the policemen) confidently assumed that he was making a good Giallo. He inserted all the typical trademarks, and figured that would be enough. He threw in gruesome kills, lesbian sex, gratuitous nudity, and the killer's usual disguise in black. Too bad he forgot that Giallo-lovers also (and primarily) seek suspense, style, and convoluted plot twists (and, most of all, decent picture quality).

This is one of your sleazier gialli right up there with scuzzy favorites like "Strip Nude for Your Killer" and "The Slasher Is a Sex Maniac". The plot even by giallo standards is hopelessly convoluted and ridiculous with far too many thinly-drawn and similar-looking characters for any non-Italian viewer to keep straight. To his credit, the first-time director, sleazeball character actor Gaetano Cimorosa, obviously tried to inject some visual style into the proceedings, but to little avail. Still there is fun to be had here; at least, if you can get past the unusually homophobic storyline that has any number of heterosexually desirable bisexuals and lesbians being killed for no other reason than their sexual orientation (even as the movie itself hypocritically wallows in prurient lesbian sex).

Normally, I'd describe the plot right here, but, believe me, it really doesn't matter with this one. The movie is currently available in two versions. The English version is full-screen with Dutch(?)subtitles, but it looks pretty decent. The Spanish language version (obviously from the post-Franco, post-censorial "destapa" period) is wide-screen and is the only version featuring nudity from the ravishing Dagmar Lassender and Magda Kopovka. Unfortunately, its also WAY too heavily padded with softcore sex scenes that manage to slow even further the movie's already glacial pace, and it looks horrible to boot. Pick your poison (lucky me, I own 'em both).

This had absolutely zero atmosphere whatsoever. It felt, to me, like a made for TV film. The camera work wasn't too bad, it wasn't breathtaking but there were some very nice shots and sets/locations, so that kept me paying attention even when the story was either not keeping me interested, or just confusing me to the point that I wanted to turn off the TV. I do like that it's a mid-70s giallo rather than the more typical early 70s, because it meant that the fashion was quite fun to observe, being different from a lot of other gialli. Mid to late 70s fashion is some of the best and funnest and craziest in my opinion, but that's completely subjective. Still, it added another factor that kept me watching. Great furniture too.

Overall it's not actually bad, it's just not good either and has no atmosphere whatsoever which is unfortunate in a giallo film. But it's better than I originally thought.

A young woman nicknamed Nellie is murdered with a razor by a woman dressed in black.The next victim named Emma has her throat slashed in a park.The police begins their investigation and question lawyer Anselmi with whom Emma worked as a secretary.The third woman is slashed to death by enigmatic beauty in black.All the victims were friends of layer's wife Leonora Anselmi."Reflections in Black" aka "Vice Wears Black Hose" is a dreary and unremarkable Italian giallo with plenty of sleaze and some sexy Euro-exploitation starlets including Dagmar Lassander and Magda Konopka.My copy runs 74 minutes and I don't have any idea where to find fully uncut 90 minutes Italian version.If you like your gialli with sleaze and full-frontal nudity check this one out.6 out of 10.