Truly Dreadful Film

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

"Le Foto Proibite Di Una Signora Per Bene" aka. "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" (1970) is the first of three Gialli by Luciano Ercoli, the others being the fantastic "La Morte Cammina Con I Tacchi Alti" ("Death Walks With High Heels", 1971) and the decent "La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte" ("Death Walks At Midnight", 1972). This is actually a highly unusual Giallo as it lacks the usual violent and stylish murders almost entirely; however, it makes up for the lack of bloodshed with a hugely compelling plot that will tantalize the viewer from start to finish.When walking alone at night Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is attacked by an assailant (Simón Andreu). He does not rape her, but blackmails her with supposed proof of her husband Peter's (Pier Paolo Capponi) role in a murder. And it isn't money that the blackmailer is keen on.... Scripted by the great Ernesto Gastaldi, whose impressive filmography as a screenwriter includes Ercoli's other two Gialli and numerous others as well as several of the works of master directors like Mario Bava, Antonio Margheriti and Sergio Martino, "Forbidden Photos..." has a fascinating and constantly tense plot full of intrigue, red herrings and sexual perversions. The film is often referred to as a very 'sexy' Giallo; while the film has a plot filled with sex, it isn't explicit though, and actually quite tame for Giallo standards (there is no explicit filmed nudity, just some nude photos of sexy Nieves Navarro are shown). The film is almost blood-less and doubtlessly one of the least goriest Gialli ever made.The cast is entirely great. All three of Ercoli's Gialli star Spanish actress Nieves Navarro and her countryman Simón Andreu. Andreu is great in the role of the sex-crazed blackmailer and the ravishing Miss Navarro is once again fantastic in her role of Minou's nymphomaniac friend. Dagmar Lassander ("Hatchet for the Honeymoon") fits perfectly in the leading role of the victim, she seems incredibly vulnerable and innocent. Pier Paolo Capponi ("Il Boss", "Cat O'Nine Tails", "Seven Blood-Stained Orchids") is once again great in his role. The film has a wonderfully elegant, typical early 70s look and the cinematography is fantastic, even by high Giallo Standards. The score was composed by none other than Ennio Morricone, needless to say that it is brilliant and perfectly increases the tension and atmosphere. In spite of a very low violence-level, "Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" manages to be an incredibly suspenseful Giallo-experience from start to finish. My personal favorite film by Ercoli is still "Death Walks with High Heels", but this one comes very close and is an undeniable must-see for any Giallo fan. Highly Recommended! My rating: 8.5/10

Ercoli's first film turns out to be a relatively restrained giallo, but one that's better than its more typical follow-ups - DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971) and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972); in these, Susan Scott (here supporting lovely Dagmar Lassander) was promoted to the lead role - having, by this time, become romantically involved with the director! While the film may disappoint some fans by its low quotient in the sex-and-violence stakes, these elements are still implicit in the narrative - particularly in the relationship between young society wife Lassander and slick blackmailer Simon Andreu, which may very well have been modeled on the even more ambiguous one shared by Catherine Deneuve and Pierre Clementi in Luis Bunuel's BELLE DE JOUR (1967)! The plot is pretty convoluted and there are red herrings and twists galore, even if the final revelation isn't exactly original. Lassander's pill-popping heroine (sign of the times!) is surely one of the most put-upon in the genre - in this, too, it differs from the norm given that, usually, there are several victims involved - and the occasional flashes to her degrading experience with Andreu are nicely handled, playing up to Ercoli's skills as an editor.There's yet another delightful and infectious score by Ennio Morricone, and the film's color scheme makes it one of the more elegant examples of the genre; lighting and props are equally well utilized (especially in Lassander and Andreu's scenes together). However, the excessive 70s fashions on display results in some unintended campiness (at one point, the nymphomaniac played by Scott attends to her guests in an outrageously skimpy attire) - and the poor dubbing job isn't very commendable, either!

Marvellous giallo and if it doesn't have lots of murders it does have Dagmar Lassander and Susan Scott (Nieves Navarro) both vying for our attention. Decent, plot development and even if it becomes a little far fetched by the end we are still held fascinated till the final frame. Nice and stylish with fabulous costumerie and room settings with a fabulous score from Morricone. Fair amount of flesh and certainly some erotic moments and shades of SM. Amazing to think of it now but not only do we have the two leading ladies laughing over the latest pornographic pictures from Denmark but Lassander at one point declares that she would adore being violated!

In one evening, a beautiful married woman, Minou, is attacked by a strange man who informs her husband, Peter, is a murderer. Although Minou can't and doesn't want to believe the apparently crazy story, her best friend, Dominique, meaningfully suggests that a man named Jean Dubois, who was found to be drowned, might be somehow murdered. So, even in the troublesome circumstance that people around her including the police Commissioner can't conform the stranger really exists, it is natural that an unpleasant idea that Peter killed Jean Dubois crosses Minou's mind... Ostensibly the story of this film is a little too old-fashioned to be that of a 1970 Giallo. But, in the last sequence, it takes an desirably satisfactory (if not new) turn which not only is manifestly influenced by Mario Bava's THE TELEPHONE (which is the first and most Giallish segment of his 1964 BLACK SABBATH) but also has rather an usual Giallish element of bisexuality which conforms the Freudian thesis that sadism and masochism must be assessed in the framework of the bisexual organisation. Speaking of the Freudian psychoanalysis, the two leading characters, namely, Minou as a masochist and the black-mailer as a sadist, are almost innocently conformable to the Freudian definitions of masochism and sadism, which are accountable for the different roles of the female and the male. Especially, Minou is a very typically Freudian woman who is, paradoxically enough, so dependent upon her husband that she can sleep with the black-mailer to protect her husband. In this sense, though Dagmar Lassander adequately plays Minou whose actions and reactions, spoken and unspoken utterances, tones of voice, facial expressions and gestures are Freudian and/or psychoanalytically explainable, this film per se isn't and can't be the one in which Lassander is at her best because her character lives in and only in the strangely self-limited world. (Incidentally, I think the 1970s' film in which Lassander is at much better is nothing but SO YOUNG, SO LOVELY, SO VICIOUS...in which she plays much more humanly ambivalent person named Irena. Unfortunately this 1975 film per se is a little to melodramatic to be an average Giallo.) And regarding the Ennio Morricone's music, though it per se doesn't seem to be particularly bad, its strangely independent cheerfulness is not adequate for the appropriately essential seriousness of the film at all. Indeed this music is an unnaturally added sense of the-reality-IN-the-film, and confuses and/or disturbs the-reality-OF-the-film. In conclusion, though I can say this film as a whole is an average Giallo, I have to say the director's similar Giallo film, DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS, which has more serious and twisted detectiveness, is better than this.