Blood and Black Lace

Blood and Black Lace (Italian: Sei donne per l'assassino, lit. 'Six Women for the Murderer') is a 1964 giallo film directed by Mario Bava.

Blood and Black Lace
Italian film poster
Directed by	Mario Bava
Produced by	Massimo Patrizi Alfredo Mirabile[1]
Screenplay by	Marcello Fondato Giuseppe Barilla Mario Bava
Story by	Marcello Fondato
Starring	Eva Bartok Cameron Mitchell Thomas Reiner Claude Dantes Dante Di Paolo
Music by	Carlo Rustichelli
Cinematography	Ubaldo Terzano
Edited by	Mario Serandrei
Production companies	Emmepi Cinematografica Productions Georges de Beauregard Monachia Film Top-Film Produktionsgesellschaft mbH[1]
Distributed by	Unidis[1]
Release date	14 March 1964 (1964-03-14) (Italy)
Running time	89 minutes
Country	Italy France Monaco West Germany[1]
Language	English[1]
Budget	$150,000
Box office	ITL ₤123,000,000 (Italy)

Bava co-wrote the screenplay with Giuseppe Barilla and Marcello Fondato. The film stars Cameron Mitchell and Eva Bartok. The story concerns the stalking and brutal murders of various scantily-clad fashion models, committed by a masked killer in a desperate attempt to obtain a scandal-revealing diary.

The film is generally considered one of the earliest and most influential of all gialli films and served as a stylistic template for the "body count" slasher films of the 1980s. Tim Lucas said that the film inspired "legions of contemporary filmmakers, from Dario Argento to Martin Scorsese to Quentin Tarantino." [1] In 2004, one of its sequences was voted No. 85 in "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" by the Bravo TV network.[2]

Plot

Isabella, one of many beautiful models employed at a fashion house, is walking through the grounds that lead to the establishment one night when she is attacked and violently killed by an assailant wearing a white featureless mask. Police Inspector Sylvester is assigned to investigate the murder and he interviews Max Morlan, the manager who co-manages the salon with his lover, the recently widowed Countess Christina Como. Max attests that he cannot provide any information whatsoever to assist the inspector, but as the investigation continues all of the fashion house's various indiscretions, including corruption, abortions, blackmail and drug addiction, begin to come to light. It is revealed that Isabella had kept a diary detailing these vices, and suddenly almost every employee becomes nervous.

Nicole finds the diary, and she promises to provide it to the police, but Peggy manages to steal it from her purse during work. That night, Nicole drives to an antique store owned by her paramour, Frank. He is not there, and while inside she suddenly finds herself stalked by a black clad figure, who had apparently been waiting for her. She gets to the front entrance door but is grabbed from behind by the masked individual, who raises and slams a spiked glove into her face, killing her instantly. The murderer searches the corpse and her purse for the diary. When it becomes clear that she did not have it, the killer runs out of the shop.

The murderer next visits Peggy's apartment. The killer gains entrance simply by knocking on the front door, and when Peggy opens it, the masked figure abruptly walks inside. The assailant slaps and hits her repeatedly, and she explains that she no longer has the diary and had in fact burned it in the fireplace. When her attacker checks the fireplace to see if she has told the truth, she tries to pick up a telephone to call for help. Enraged, the murderer hits her repeatedly in the face until she is knocked unconscious. The assailant then carries her away just as the police arrive.

Peggy is taken to another location and tied to a chair. The killer tortures her, demanding to know where the diary is. The woman reaches up and knocks off the mask. The shocked girl recognizes her assailant, who proceeds to kill her brutally by slowly pressing her face against the red-hot surface of a burning furnace.

Inspector Sylvester is convinced that the murderer is one of the men employed at the fashion house, so he arrests all of those he believes might be related to the deaths. However, while the suspects are in custody, Greta discovers Peggy's corpse hidden in the trunk of her car, and is then attacked and smothered to death by the killer. After discovering the bodies of the latest victims, Sylvester releases all of the men.

Max visits Christina and reminds her about how he had assisted in the murder of her husband. Isabella had found out that Max had been involved in the crime, and began blackmailing him. When she started asking for more and more money, Max murdered her. It was only later that Max and Christina realized she had been keeping a diary that revealed everything. While attempting to retrieve the diary, Max had also killed Nicole and Peggy. When Max and the other men from the agency were placed under arrest, Christina had murdered Greta to give Max an alibi for the previous killings. Now, Max tells Christina that he once again needs her help and convinces her that after only one more death they will be safe. That night, the voluptuous Tilde is drowned in her bathtub by the masked killer who, immediately after the murder, removes the mask and is revealed as Christina. She uses a razor blade to slice the corpse's wrists in order to make the death seem like a suicide. Christina prepares to leave the victim's apartment when she is interrupted by a knocking sound on the front door followed by the loud voice of a man identifying himself as the police. She decides to escape out the second story window and then tries to climb down a drainpipe, which falls under her weight, slamming her to the ground.

Later that night, Max searches through Christina's desk, looking for money and documents. Suddenly, a bloody and bruised Christina enters the room, shakily holding a gun aimed directly at Max. Max had been the "policeman" knocking on Tilde's door, and, knowing how Christina would attempt to escape, he had deliberately broken the drainpipe in such a way that it would be guaranteed to collapse. He attempts to persuade his lover and almost succeeds in getting her to hand over the gun, but she abruptly changes her mind and shoots him to death. The mortally wounded Christina collapses next to Max's corpse.

Cast

• Eva Bartok as Contessa Cristiana Cuomo (Countess Christina Como in the English Version)
• Cameron Mitchell as Massimo Morlacchi (Max Morlan)
• Thomas Reiner as Ispettore Silvestri (Inspector Sylvester)
• Arianna Gorini as Nicole
• Dante DiPaolo (as Dante Di Paolo) as Franco Scalo (Frank Scalo)
• Mary Arden as Peggy Peyton
• Franco Ressel as Marchese Riccardo Morelli (Marquis Richard Morell)
• Claude Dantes as Tao-Li (Tilde)
• Luciano Pigozzi as Cesare Lazzarini (Caesar Lazar)
• Lea Lander (as Lea Krugher) as Greta
• Massimo Righi as Marco
• Francesca Ungaro as Isabella
• Giuliano Raffaelli as Zanchin
• Harriet White Medin (as Hariette White Medin) as Clarissa (Clarice)
• Mary Carmen (as Mara Carmosino) as Model
• Heidi Stroh as Bleach Blond Model
• Enzo Cerusico as Gas Station Attendant
• Nadia Anty as Model
• Calisto Calisti as Butler (uncredited)
• Goffredo Unger as the Masked Killer (uncredited)

Production

Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath (1963) were worldwide commercial successes. As a consequence, Bava was given creative control over Blood and Black Lace. An Italian-West German co-production, the film's backers were expecting a routine murderer-on-the-loose yarn in the Edgar Wallace tradition. In Europe during the early 1960s, movies based on the murder mystery novels of the incredibly prolific Wallace had become a mini-genre of their own. About 100 or so of these movies were made, most of them produced in West Germany. Although some of the murder sequences could be vicious, the emphasis was on the police procedural and mystery aspects of the narrative, often wit h sone Comic relief.

Bava was "bored by the mechanical nature of the whodunit"[1] and decided to deemphasize the more accepted clichés of the genre. The stalk-and-kill sequences themselves were given more importance than all other concerns. He emphasized horror and sex in ways that had usually only been hinted at before. Under the working title of "L'atelier della morte" ("The Fashion House of Death"), the movie was filmed in Rome during a six-week period between November 1963 and January 1964. The exterior locations of the fashion house were filmed at the Villa Sciarra and not at the Villa Pamphili as incorrectly reported by many sources. The film's budget was low, approximately $150,000. Bava was forced to improvise numerous times during the production in order to get the technical results he wanted. Cameron Mitchell noted that in order to film an impressive dolly shot through the fashion house, Bava simply placed the camera on a child's red wagon. Similarly, Bava completed several crane shots by utilizing a "makeshift seesaw contraption."[1]

Blood and Black Lace was written in English in order to allow for easier exportation to the United States; all of the film's cast members spoke their lines in English, some of them phonetically. Actress Mary Arden found the translated script to be too stilted, and subsequently wrote the dialogue as it appears in the film as a favor for Bava and the producers. Two separate English dub tracks for the film were created: the original version was directed by actor Mel Welles in Rome, and featured most of the English-speaking actors, including Mitchell, Eva Bartok and Arden, reprising their onscreen roles; Welles dubbed Thomas Reiner and several other actors. Now believed to be lost, this track was rejected for American distribution by the Woolner Brothers, who commissioned a second dub track that was produced in Los Angeles under the supervision of Lou Moss. With the exception of Dante DiPaolo (who looped his own lines), most of the male voices for the second dub, including Mitchell and Reiner's, were provided by Paul Frees.[3][4]

Release

Blood and Black Lace was shown in Italy on 14 March 1964[5] and on 7 April 1965 in the United States. In Italy, Blood and Black Lace was a box office failure, grossing only 123 million lire (approximately US $77,000), earning back only half of the production cost. It was subsequently nearly forgotten and became difficult to see in that country until a 1999 home video release. In West Germany, the film was a moderate financial success and helped convince the backers to film their subsequent Edgar Wallace-styled whodunits in color.[4]

Because of the film's titillating combination of near-naked women and gory murder, American International Pictures passed on releasing Blood and Black Lace, despite having had commercial success with Bava's previous Black Sabbath and Black Sunday. AIP felt Bava's movie was "too intense, too adult for the 'kiddie trade.'"[1] The film was instead distributed in the U.S. by the Woolner Brothers (producers Lawrence and Bernard Woolner). Woolner Brothers released the movie, but with a different opening title sequence.[1]

Home media

Arrow Video released the Blu-ray Disc on 21 April 2015 in the United States and 13 April in the United Kingdom.[6]

Critical reception

Initial response

Initial reviews for Blood and Black Lace were mostly negative, with many critics panning the film's violence. A. H. Weiler of The New York Times complained, "Murdering mannequins is sheer, wanton waste. And so is "Blood and Black Lace," the super-gory whodunit which came out of Italy to land at neighborhood houses yesterday sporting stilted dubbed English dialogue, stark color, and grammar-school histrionics."[7] Variety felt it was an "okay mystery...handsomely produced."[4] A review in the Monthly Film Bulletin declared it as Bava's "most expensive-looking and ecorative horror film to date" concluding that "if this is a very good (i.e. characteristic) example of Bava's work, it is a less good example of the murder thriller genre, being derivative, for the most part poorly acted and written, and risible in its several descents into bathos."[8]

Leonard Maltin gave the film one and a half out of a possible four stars, criticizing the film's "wooden script and performances" but complimented Bava's direction, calling it "imaginative."[9]

Later reception

Later response for Blood and Black Lace has been mostly positive; with the film often cited as an important title in the development of the giallo film genre and is considered to be one of the major movies of the so-called "Golden Age" of Italian horror. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 86% based on 14 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 7.43/10.[10]

Almar Haflidason, reviewing the film for BBC Online, said that "Director Mario Bava stages all these murders with the flair and style that was to become a founding mantle for the giallo films... Through a prowling camera style and shadow-strewn baroque sets that are illuminated only by single brilliant colours, he creates a claustrophobic paranoia that seeps into the fabric of the movie and the viewer."[11] Glenn Erickson, aka "DVD Savant", noted "Bava probably didn't mean to invent a subgenre with Blood and Black Lace, a murder story which forgoes the slow buildups and character development of previous thrillers to concentrate almost exclusively on the killings themselves."[12] Fernando F. Croce of Slant Magazine stated, "The roots of the Hollywood slasher are often traced back to Blood and Black Lace, yet Mario Bava's seminal giallo has a richness of texture and complexity of gaze that have kept its elaborate carnage scintillating even following decades of leeching from genre vultures."[13]

Legacy

Blood and Black Lace's mixture of eroticism and violence later used as a template for both giallo and slasher films. Tim Lucas has written that Blood and Black Lace was "one of the most influential thrillers ever made" and "the first authentic 'body count' movie."[1] Blood and Black Lace has been included in multiple lists in various media outlets as one of the greatest horror films ever made. It was ranked at #28 in Paste Magazine's "50 Greatest Serial Killer Movies of All Time".[14] Paste Magazine would also list the film at #8 in their "50 Best Slasher Movies of All Time".[15] Esquire place it at #50 in their list of "The 55 Scariest Movies of All Time".[16] It was listed at #59 in Slant Magazine's "100 Greatest Horror Films Ever Made".[17]

References

Bibliography

• Maltin, Leonard; Green, Spencer; Edelman, Rob (January 2010). Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide. Plume. ISBN 978-0-452-29577-3.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

Notes

1. Lucas, Tim. Blood and Black Lace DVD, Image Entertainment, 2005, liner notes. ASIN: B000BB1926
2. "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments". bravotv.com. Archived from the original on 13 July 2006. Retrieved 5 July 2012.
3. Lucas, Tim. Blood and Black Lace (Blu-ray). Arrow Films. Event occurs at 32:15.
4. Lucas, Tim (2007). Mario Bava: All the Colors of the Dark. Video Watchdog. pp. 541–68. ISBN 0-9633756-1-X.
5. "Blutige Seide". filmportal.de. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
6. Croce, Fernando. "Arrow Video Announces Second Wave of North American Releases". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
7. Weiler, A. H. (11 November 1965). "Blood and Black Lace'". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
8. "Sei donne per l'assassino (Blood and Black Lace), Italy/France/W. Germany, 1964". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 33 no. 385. British Film Institute. February 1966. p. 18.
9. Maltin 2010, p. 68. sfn error: no target: CITEREFMaltin2010 (help)
10. "Sei donne per l'assassino (Blood and Black Lace) (Six Women for the Murderer) (1964)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 21 September 2019.
11. Haflidason, Almar. "BBC - Films - review - Blood and Black Lace". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
12. Erickson, Glenn. "DVD Savant Review: THE BCI Mario Bava Box". dvdtalk.com. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
13. Croce, Fernando. "Blood and Black Lace". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 12 July 2012.
14. Vorel, Jim (October 22, 2019). "The 50 Best Serial Killer Movies of All Time". PasteMagazine.com. Paste Magazine. Retrieved March 19, 2020.
15. Vorel, Jim (October 18, 2019). "The 50 Best Slasher Movies of All Time". PasteMagazine.com. Paste Magazine. Retrieved March 21, 2020.
16. Schrodt, Paul (October 19, 2018). "55 Scariest Movies of All Time". Esquire.com. Esquire. Retrieved March 19, 2020.
17. "The 100 Best Horror Movies of All Time". SlantMagazine.com. Slant Magazine. October 25, 2019. p. 5. Retrieved March 19, 2020.

Further reading

• Curti, Roberto (May 2019). Blood and Black Lace. Auteur Publishing. ISBN 978-1-911325-93-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Luther-Smith, Adrian (1999). Blood and Black Lace. Stray Cat Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-0-9533261-1-2.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

External links

• Blood and Black Lace at AllMovie
• Blood and Black Lace on IMDb
• Blood and Black Lace at Rotten Tomatoes
• Blood and Black Lace at the TCM Movie Database