Blood and Black Lace

The diary is a Pandora's box of secrets

The fountain of fortune is muted in the pouring rain. The wind creaks the metal sign like twisted bones.

The film opens in darkness, revealing a number of inert, trunk-like female forms that emerge from deep pools of black. These unliving torsos could be carved like meat by the skilled, supple, and unquestionably gloved hands of a psychopathic sadist, a killer of vast, demented proportions. But can you tell me: what is his motivation? What does this mad fiend from a silent movie cliffhanger, in actuality, seek?

Giallos are the name given to Italian thriller films of a sexy, violent, melodramatic nature—the term originates from “yellow”; literally yellow journalism, paperbacks of knock-off thrillers written by Italian imitators of popular American authors. Imitations of imitations followed, with various small publishing houses copying the mystery reprints of the Giallo Mondadori publishing house, turning out similar yellow (“giallo”)-backed pulp thrillers.

Giallo, in the sense of films, takes on the aspects of a thriller wherein a masked or black-gloved killer stalks a series of beautiful women, often models, dispatching them in a gruesome, hyper-violent manner. The scenes of murder are often accompanied by a jarring musical score, and underlit, dramatic cinematography is a distinctive element of the all’italiana giallo genre.

Mario Bava, a director who was king of bad genre cinema, dipping his cinematic wand into such disparate genres as sci-fi and supernatural horror (vide Planet of the Vampires, Black Sunday, and Black Sabbath), here gives us masterful giallo energy, relating a tale with as much metaphoric subtext as can be digested.

An Italian modeling house—a place that seems curiously situated in the middle of a forest—provides the scene of a brutal, inexplicable murder. Isabella, a fashion model who inexplicably decides to go for a late-night stroll, is killed by a masked stranger who has a featureless visage, concealed beneath mask, as well as a fedora hat and long coat. Why? One wonders.

Isabella left a diary behind, and in it are implicated scandal and blackmail. Inspector Silvestri inspects and suspects Massimo Morlacchi (the old reliable horror and cult standby Cameron Mitchell), who operates the fashion house along with Countess Cristiana Cuomo.

The house is dark; the grounds are dark. The film is dark, yet bright with colorful cinematography—a roving eye that sees the implicit horror beneath every suspect gaze. Who is the killer, and what is hidden in the enigmatic diary that is so important to him?

Silvestri eventually settles on six suspects, one of whom looks like an Italian giallo knock-off of Peter Lorre. None of them seem to be guilty, but all of them serve as human red herrings toward the real offender here—who cannot be named, as revealing the lynchpin of such a film would ruin the experience for anyone who has yet to see it.

The killer in Blood and Black Lace, as mysterious as he is, has the mien of the killer in the equally old movie The Bat, the provenance of which stretches even further back to “Old Dark House” spook shows such as The Cat and the Canary and The Phantom of the Opera.

He lurks in the night. The trees whisper his name. Along a lonely path through the woods, a young woman walks, resplendent in the moonlight, her face the color of old wax, her lips deep, glorious red. The lens crawls over her form, lovingly examining the angular planes of her face, intersecting in geometric perfection. A rustle in the brush, and a hand comes over her face—a gloved ball of flesh that stifles her scream as she looks into the sleek, smooth, featureless face of a killer, a face upon which a detective could paint whatever visage he imagines the culprit to bear.

But it hardly matters. Because beneath the black-hatted head lies the beetling brain of a demented demoniac, a madman who kills with vengeance, and with a secret.

And whatever that secret may be, he isn’t telling you.

Not. Just. Yet.

Written and directed by Mario Bava. Original title: "Six Women for the Assassin" ("6 donne per l'assassino"). Starring Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner , Claude Dantes , Dante Di Paolo. The rest uou can Google.

Fin.

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