Blood and Black Lace (1964)
aka Sei donne Per L’Assassino
- Directed by Mario Bava
- Written by Marcello Fondato
- Starring
- Cameron Mitchell
- Eva Bartok
- Thomas Reiner
- Ariana Gorini
- Dante DiPaolo
I mentioned in my review for The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) the love/hate relationship I have with Dario Argento and his “visuals first, storytelling second” approach to filmmaking. That goes double for Argento’s progenitor Mario Bava. Bava was incredibly influential in his use of color and framing, using his background as a painter to design tableaus that are evocative and enthralling. Unfortunately, his regard for film as a primarily narrative art was somewhat lacking. By the end of Blood and Black Lace, the viewer certainly remembers distinct scenes and shots, but not so much the whole of what they have just experienced for the last 90 minutes. And if you know me, you know that’s a problem for me.
This movie is doubly influential in that it’s usually marked as the first of the giallo thrillers, a subgenre of mystery/suspense flicks in which a mysterious black-clad killer carves up vaguely related victims while someone tries desperately to figure out who and why. All of the elements that define the giallo are present here, though some later directors made up for their lack of comparable visual flair by adding a plot. (Ooh! Zing!)
“Thank you. I find your accent charming as well.”
The central setting is a fashion salon, where a dozen skinny models are preparing for their next show. Well, a dozen minus one; one of our first scenes shows the model Isabella (Francesca Ungaro) trekking at night down the improbably long lane from where the taxi dropped her off to the old manor that houses the fashion business. The only reason to have a lane so long is so that a mysterious killer will have occasion to attack the young model, and what do you know! In a scene that was terribly shocking at the time and still packs a punch of brutality today, a figure in a black trenchcoat and hat, with a fabric mask that makes him look faceless, leaps out, strangles Isabella with a rope, then bashes her head against a tree several times for good measure.
Not the best disguise for a compulsive nose-picker.
When the body is discovered later that night in a closet in the fashion salon (whah?), the police investigation gives us a good chance to round out our cast of characters. The whole fashion shebang is owned and bankrolled by Countess Cristina (the exquisite Eva Bartok), assisted by businessman Max Marian (Cameron Mitchell, back when “starring Cameron Mitchell” meant that he was appearing in more than one scene in an ultra-low-budget schlocker). Dead Isabella roomed with two other models, Nicole (Ariana Gorini) and another girl; along with Peggy (Mary Arden), they were the top models. Shifty-eyed Marco (Massimo Righi) assists and does handyman stuff. Cesar (Luciano Pigozzi, doing a nigh-perfect Peter Lorre impression) is the dress designer. The Marquis Morell (Franco Ressel) hangs around because he’s engaged to model Greta (Lea Krugher). All of this is checklisted by Inspector Silvester (Thomas Reiner).
Now, quick — who’s the protagonist? You may be ready to assume that it’s the police inspector, or barring that, simply the character with whom we spend the most time in the next twenty minutes; it’s still early, after all. Unfortunately, you’d be wrong on both counts. Inspector Silvester is an agent of plot mechanics, but he’s not the hero here. And you soon discover that any character you spend significant time with isn’t the protagonist, she’s the next victim.
Wait. Three single models live in this flat? You’re kidding me.
In preparing for the next show and shuffling around the dresses that Isabella was meant to model, Nicole discovers that Isabella kept a diary — and suddenly everyone’s interested. That night, Nicole goes to the house/shop of her boyfriend Frank (Dante DiPaolo), an antiques dealer, and is attacked and murdered by the killer in black in the shop in a scene that is rightly renowned for its use of color, lighting, and staging. The killer is obviously interested in the diary, but it’s not in the dead Nicole’s purse. Who has it? And what’s in it?
Black. It goes with everything.
Plenty of people are shown to have an interest in keeping the diary away from prying eyes. Peggy borrowed money from Isabella to take care of an unwanted pregnancy. Frank has a cocaine habit. Marquis Morell is broke, despite his title. I’m not sure what Marco or Cesar are hiding, but it probably has to to with women’s underwear or a back room full of pristine Star Wars toys. We’re never with any one of them long enough for a protagonist to emerge; instead, it’s simply a parade of killings, undertaken with ingenuity but not the kind of cleverness for novelty’s sake we came to expect/dread in the slasher flicks of the ‘80s. They are pretty, pretty scenes of cruelty; if ever a movie was made to be seen as discrete scenes on YouTube, it’s this one.
But if, like me, you aren’t enthralled by admittedly stunning visuals to the point of forgetting that there’s a story supposedly being told here, it all becomes rather tedious. There’s no one to root for, or even to get to know; it’s a series of events, but not a story. Bava may be the Italian Hitchcock, but Hitchcock still needed a Joseph Stefano or an Ernest Lehman to write his scripts, and Marcello Fondato ain’t no Lehman.
The good old days, when of course every man would be wearing a suit and tie when dragged into the police station…
(If you’re lucky enough to see this on a DVD with language options, skip the English dub and go directly to the original Italian1 with subtitles; the dubbed English script is clumsy, and the disinterested performers don’t make it any better.)
Some Notable Totables:
- body count: 7
- breasts: 0
- explosions: 0
- ominous thunderstorms: 1
- actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 0
- Of course, calling it the “original” Italian ignores the fact that Cameron Mitchell knew no Italian and performed in English, so whichever version you listen to, somebody’s going to be dubbed.[back]
