La morte non ha sesso

I do readily concede that I know close to squat about Director Massimo Dallamano, having only watched his poliziotto entitled COLT 38 SPECIAL SQUAD, which made chases and gory action its main menu.

By comparison, A BLACK VEIL FOR LISA pays a shade more attention to character building. The ever reliable British actor John Mills plays Hamburg-based Interpol Inspector Franz Bulon who, in spite of his undeniable professionalism, prioritizes keeping an eye on his often absent from home wife, the stunningly dishy, fine-featured Luciana Paluzzi who had come to international notice three years earlier in THUNDERBALL, with Connery's James Bond handing her slippers to cover her nudity.

In BLACK VEIL FOR LISA, Paluzzi displays fabulous nudity and not just to cuckolded hubby Mills, who she also deceives by passing classified info to a Porsche-driving villain who deals in tulips and murder, in addition to bedding him and handsome hitman Max, smugly played by Robert Hoffmann.

Competent cinematography from Angelo Lotti, reasonably deft screenplay from Belli and Petrilli, with interesting nuances adding to Paluzzi's sensual survival instinct and sexiness, allowing her to completely steal the show.

The ending could and should have been more credibly done, difficult to believe that a police inspector and a habitual hitman should put up such innocuous personal defense.

As a footnote, a word of appreciation for the presence of great, very classy German car models of the 1960s: Mercedes Benz, Porsche, Opel, Volkswagen all there.

Enjoyable police thriller 8/10.

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!

Builds up to a predictable finale.

First, this film lacks important giallo qualities. Most importantly, there is no mystery about who the killer is. It's a relatively bloodless film with little cat-and-mouse/stalking shenanigans to speak of.

On the plus side, there are some good characters here. They are well-written and well-acted. However, after the build up of suspense around tulips and around the police report in the envelope, there is no payoff. Things play out to their natural conclusion. There are no surprises to be had here.

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.

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.