La morte cammina con i tacchi alti

A really fun giallo that is more than a little of a fishy tale. We get a strange seller of fish on the beach, always popping up, an extraordinary attempt at erotic fish eating and absolutely masses of red herrings. But aside from all that this is a most convoluted tale where nobody could predict the outcome, let alone the hilarious pair from Scotland Yard. Indeed more humour than usual in this slightly longer than usual sparkling giallo. Not filled with killings but when they come they are most effective and explicit, and the sexiness of the opening with the Crazy Horse setting continues throughout, mainly thanks to Nieves Navarro. Opening in Paris then, we move to London, some fine night shots near The Windmill, and finally to 'the countryside, which I had always assumed to be somewhere in the UK but, the clue is in the co-production status and is I learn in fact Spain. Highly recommended.

Director Luciano Ercoli, screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, and actors Susan Scott and Simon Andreu had greatly impressed me with their 1970 giallo offering, "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion." Curious to see whether lightning could possibly strike twice for this same team, I took a look at 1971's "Death Walks on High Heels," and it turns out that this latter film is, remarkably, even better than the first. In this one, sexy redheaded stripper Nicole (appealingly played by Scott) gets into major-league trouble when a masked killer with a mechanical voice box starts to target her, whilst looking for some stolen diamonds. You may think that you know where this stylish thriller is headed (and Ercoli DOES direct with style to spare), but trust me, you're dead wrong. A shocking twist of plot around halfway through really does pull the rug out from the viewer's expectations here, sending us into very strange and uncharted waters indeed. Gastaldi has here provided us with yet another ingeniously plotted story that hangs together marvelously (unlike--for me, anyway--Ercoli and Scott's follow-up film, 1972's "Death Walks at Midnight"); composer Stelvio Cipriani has contributed a chic and catchy score; and some great-looking lensing of Paris, London and the English countryside provides some elegant backdrops for the film's very sinister doings. Add some touches of welcome humor (in the film's latter half), one genuinely nasty slice-and-dice sequence for the gorehounds, and some fairly brutal fisticuffs at the film's conclusion and you have one extremely satisfying giallo indeed. Good luck trying to figure out the killer's identity in this one! As icing on the cake, the DVD that I just watched comes to us courtesy of the fine folks at No Shame, who continue to impress with pristine prints of lost Italian wonders, and with excellent subtitling, to boot. Grazie, No Shame!

A good plot, coupled with good editing, makes for a good noirish giallo. Direction drags at times, hence a lower rating. Woman-in-peril film with all of the standard giallo tropes. Becomes a little surreal once she arrives in the UK. An entertaining Ercoli effort, albeit slow pacing at times.

A famed jewel thief named Rochard is slashed to death on a train. His daughter Nicole, a famous nightclub performer in Paris, is questioned by the police about some missing diamonds but she claims to know nothing about this. Nicole is then terrorized by a masked man with piercing blue eyes who demands to know where her father has hidden the stolen diamonds.

The film is written by no less a figure than Ernesto Gastaldi, who is considered by some to be the father of giallo. The director, Luciano Ercoli, is interestingly perhaps better known as a producer or production designer. He more or less fell into directing as a cost-cutting measure -- one less person to hire. (Tim Lucas compares Ercoli to Brian DePalma... and there is some truth to that.)

Who doesn't love composer Stelvio Cipriani, probably among the top composers in Italy (behind perhaps Ennio Morricone and Goblin for genre film). What we get here is rather sparse (many scenes have no music at all) but the man does what he does well. Not surprisingly, his work has been used by Quentin Tarantino, the champion of such films as this.

A note on the lead actor, an American. Frank Wolff had bit roles in his first two films, Roger Corman's "I Mobster" and "The Wasp Woman". On Corman's advice, Frank Wolff remained in Europe and became a well-known character actor in over fifty, mostly Italian-made, films of the 1960s, including crime/suspense "gialli" and spaghetti westerns.

Director Ercoli obviously does not have the name recognition of Mario Bava or Dario Argento, but he still knows how to make a great giallo (with a dollop of influence from Argento's "Bird With the Crystal Plumage"). A masked and gloved killer, a bit of mirrors, and an unhealthy fascination with eyes -- close-ups of eyes, false eyes, windows that look like eyes. Nobody knows eyes like the Italians!

The Arrow Video blu-ray allows the viewer to watch either the Italian or English versions (because sometimes you need a dub, and sometimes you don't). The disc also comes with: Audio commentary by film critic Tim Lucas, by far the most knowledgeable non-Italian scholar of the Italian genre film. Introduction to the film by screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi. A featurette comprising newly-edited archive footage of director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro. A career-spanning interview with composer Stelvio Cipriani. Italian genre fans (which includes pretty much all horror fans) will love this disc, part of Arrow's "Death Walks Twice" set.

"La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" (Death walks on high heels) features another of the giallo goddesses: Susan Scott (aka Nieves Navarro).

Like many giallos, this is a sensuous film. It's not fast paced as today's movies, where car chases, bombs exploding, bullets flying taking toll etc.. succeed each other non-stop.

But "La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" is a thriller alright - right from the beginning we see a murder on a train. A black-hooded killer (dressed in black) kills a patch-eyed man. He searches the victims's cabin, but he doesn't find what he was looking for.

There was a big robbery. A safe was cracked and valuable jewels were stolen. The man killed in his cabin was thought to be in possession of the jewels. Cut.

Paris. Nicole Rochard (Susan Scott) is the daughter of the man that was killed in the train. She is a dancer and strip-teaser. Now the killer will go after her. He wants to know where are the jewels, but Nicole doesn't (?) know. She will flee to England (first to London and then to a small village on the English coast), but death is following her. Needless to say, killings will happen and the Scotland Yard will step in. I've tried not to give away much of the story so as not to spoil your fun.

The Italian cinema had at the time very good technicians. The soundtrack, lighting effects, costumes and decor etc.., were taken care by masters of the craft. For many giallo films, even if they had average directors, the atmosphere and charm were created by the combined effort of the film crew. Just check out "La Dama Rossa uccide sette volte" to see what I'm meaning.

Susan Scott (like other giallo goddesses) is a perfect damsel in distress. Whatever she does (no matter what, as another reviewer pointed out), is arousing, be it dancing, bulging her eyes in fear, painting her nails etc.. The other actors do a good job as well - Simon Andreu as Michel, Nicole's Parisian boyfriend soon to follow her to England; Frank Wolff, as the classy Dr. Robert Matthews, with whom Nicole elopes to England; Carlo Gentile and Fabrizio Moresco, as inspector Baxter and his faithful assistant Bergson; the beautiful Claude Lange, as Vanessa..., and last but not least, the actors playing the local villagers - the people of the pub; Luciano Rossi, as the sinister Hallory; the strange street fish seller; the wandering and curious Captain Lenny (George Rigaud)..... Scenery and actors work in perfect harmony.

"La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" is an entertaining and sensual thriller, but if you only like non-stop "bang bang sock boom crash" , then avoid this film.