Le foto proibite di una signora per bene

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

The dull Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is spending a couple of days in her house nearby the beach. When she goes to a restaurant to have dinner, she is harassed by a stranger (Simon Andreu) riding a motorcycle that tells that her husband has killed a business investor. Minou calls her husband Pier (Pier Paolo Capponi) and they return home. Pier is a businessman near bankruptcy and former lover of Minou's best friend Dominique (Susan Scott). Soon Minou receives a phone call of the stranger that tells that he has a tape of Pier killing an investor. He proposes to trade the tape for kinky sex with her, and Minou accepts the proposal to protect Pier. But soon she learns that she was victim of a scheme and Pier did not kill the investor. Further, the stranger now has photos of their sex and blackmails her, and she confides everything to Dominique. What will they do?

"Le foto proibite di una signora per bene", a.k.a. "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion", is a flawed and erotic thriller with a great plot point in the end. The actresses are extremely sexy and gorgeous, and the erotic tension is kept along the story. However, their characters are silly and shallow. The story has many flaws to misguide the viewer, but the final twist is unexpected. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Fotos Proibidas" ("Forbidden Photos")

This is a slightly unusual giallo. In fact, it is debatable whether it is actually a giallo at all, as there is no knife-wielding black-gloved assassin and there are no murders to speak of. Strictly speaking, this is a mystery movie with a giallo feel. The gialloesque elements come in the form of an eye-catching title, stylish camera-work, great interior decor, a Morricone score, a convoluted mystery, sleazy undertones and the usual quota of beautiful looking women and hideous looking men. In other words, its great fun. The cast is very small, including giallo regular Pier Paolo Capponi, but the undoubted stars of the show are the leading ladies. Both Dagmar Lassandar and Susan Scott look very alike, and this is no bad thing as they are both stunning. Susan Scott is particularly effective here, she has a great screen presence and truly shines in this film - it really is hard to take your eyes off her. The Morricone score is pretty varied, from dreamy lounge to cheesy Euro-pop. It isn't necessarily one of his better soundtracks but it certainly has kitsch value. There is also some incredibly un-PC dialogue and the plot itself is not exactly coming at us from a feminist angle! However, this is to be expected from a 70s giallo movie and its one of the reasons why we love them. They are time-capsules of a different era. I would recommend this film for giallo completists and lovers of obscure Italian movies. Its unusual and camp fun. But if you are expecting an Argentoesque violent thriller you may be best served looking elsewhere.

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.

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.