Delitto D'autore

"How strange, Marco. I sense fear and my head feels light."

Countess Valeria Volpi Gerosi (Wilma Casagrande) has generously donated a painting by Peter Paul Rubens as the prize for a prestigious music festival. In attendance for the event is her niece, Milena (Sylva Koscina) who is secretly married to Marco (Pier Paolo Capponi), because Valeria doesn't approve of Marco. When a mysterious phone call threatens misfortune if the painting is donated, nobody takes it seriously, but soon after, Milena is kidnapped, the painting is stolen and Valeria is murdered. Bloody priest's robes are found at the scene, but could the killer really be the kindly Don Lino (Luigi Pistilli)? Who stole the painting? Who kidnapped Milena and why? The police have a web of motives to untangle!

Delitto D'Autore (not to be confused with Delitti) is a tough watch - not for the content, but because its plot is absolutely inscrutable. I appreciate the neorealist approach of dropping the audience into a naturalistic conversation, but there are so few context clues in the dialogue that it's challenging to figure out what's going on, who the characters are and what their relationships are to each other. It all becomes more clear as the movie goes on, but writer/director Mario Sabatini was obviously more interested in style than a coherent plot. The mis-directs seem forced and the ultimate motivation of the killer is sadly anticlimactic.

• The movie was apparently never released with an English title, but it translates as "Copyright Crimes," which doesn't make sense until the final minutes of the film. The only alternate title I could find is the Greek O dolofonos me ta kokkina heili, or "The Killer With Red Lips."

• Despite the rickety final product, the movie has a star-studded cast - Luigi Pistilli (Bay of Blood), Sylvia Koschina (Crimes of the Black Cat), Pier Paolo Capponi (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids) and Krista Nell (So Sweet, So Dead) are giallo all-stars

What the Hell Am I Watching?

With a run time of only 75 minutes, I wish the filmmakers could have taken more time with the plot. But instead, they chose to pad the film with two scenes of naked frolicking women. First, there's a pool party that devolves into a giddy lesbian grope session. Later, we take time for a topless dance party, which looks like an X-rated episode of Laugh-In. Obviously, neither of these scenes has anything to do with the rest of the movie and are just awkwardly shoehorned into the edit.

Dream sequences are always fun, especially when the character is drugged. Milena tells Don Lino about her drug-induced dream, where she was dancing feverishly with shadowy figures.

 

 

 

She then woke up to find a pair of leather gloves. If an intruder was in her room while she slept, why would he take off his gloves and place them on her blanket before leaving? This is the kind of style-over-logic thinking that we find throughout the film.

The movie ends with a climactic car chase, in which the drivers zip up and down staircases, which is pretty fun. In one shot, you can clearly see the camera operator's shadow on the roof of the car as it passes by.

Fashion Moment:

There wasn't a lot of thought or effort put into the script and, sadly, this laziness carries over into the production design and costumes. The cast gets glammed up for a night of dancing, which is about it. Also, the mid-70's European swimwear is on full display at the pool (before it gets tossed aside).

So Sweet, So Dead

So Sweet, So Dead

 "She was taken by surprise, tried desperately to resist... just like the others."

Inspector Capuana (Farley Granger) is on the trail of a murderer who only targets unfaithful women and leaves compromising photos of the victims with their lovers at each crime scene. As the murderer strikes again and again, the husbands and wives of the city grow more and more anxious, wondering who will be next... and who among them has reason to worry. With every murder, both the husbands and the lovers have alibis, so who would have reason to kill? Time is running out and the serial killer who calls himself "the Avenger" must be stopped!

Rest easy, wheel. You're in no danger of getting re-invented by So Sweet, So Dead (not to be confused with So Sweet... So Perverse).  This movie uses all the familiar rhythms, spaces its murders out evenly over the course of the movie, and is faithful to the conventions of the genre. Too faithful, I'd say. While it's entertaining enough, and the murderer who only targets cheaters is a somewhat novel approach, So Sweet, So Dead shows little ambition when it comes to the story, characters, or stylish visuals. It's say it's a good beginner's giallo - one that won't spoil a newcomer for other, better films of the genre.

• While establishing the killer's profile, Capuana and the Coroner, Professor Casali (Chris Avram) run through a laundry list of standard giallo motives: impotence, homosexuality, covering up another crime, and plain old insanity.
• This film is graced by giallo superstar Susan Scott, who, by taking on the small role of Lilly, instantly boosts the movie's credibility.
• You may also recognize Luciano Rossi, who plays creepster morgue worker Gastone. He was the crazy blonde hit man in Death Walks at Midnight. In this movie, though, he not only gets to talk, but he carries entire scenes.
• There are a few good murder scenes here. I liked how the murder on the train was done and that the body of Renata (Krista Nell) is found stylishly draped across a spiral staircase.
• The murderer in So Sweet, So Dead is the classic giallo killer, who could have walked right out of Blood and Black Lace. He wears the traditional stocking mask, fedora, gloves, and trench coat with the collar turned up, all in black, of course.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Some scripts set up red herrings or clever mis-directs. This one is just full of incomplete thoughts. For example, Bettina Santangeli (Angela Covello), the teenage daughter of a prominent lawyer, witnesses one of the murders, though she can't identify the masked killer. She is understandably afraid that the killer will murder her next. And then that sub-plot is dropped and we never hear about it or Bettina ever again.

After knocking on a suspect's door with no answer, the police send up a warning shot. With a burst from a sub-machine gun.  That really escalated quickly.

After killing a woman in her home, the murderer tries to walk out the front door, only to be blocked by the victim's boyfriend. But for some reason, instead of finding a back exit, the killer climbs out the window next to the front stoop.  Luckily, there just happens to be a ladder under the window.  Needless to say, the boyfriend quickly spots and confronts the killer.  So much for a criminal mastermind.

Fashion Moment

Our killer seems to have a thing for ladies in pink.  Many (but not all) of the victims appear in a similar rosy shade. Here's Franca Santangeli (Annabella Incontrera):

Here's Lilly (Susan Scott):

Shortly after witnessing Lilly's murder, Bettina wears this hat and matching gloves:

And, finally, Barbara Capuana (Sylvia Koscina) appears in this pink housecoat:

On an unrelated note, let's have a look at that classic killer costume.

The Crimes of the Black Cat

The Crimes of the Black Cat

"But I can't just go to the police and accuse a shadow... a voice... a scent."

The models at a Copenhagen fashion house owned by Françiose Balla (Sylvia Koscina) are turning up dead one by one... apparently of natural causes. At each crime scene, Inspector Jansen (Renato De Carmine) finds a picnic basket, a yellow shawl, and strange scratches on the corpse's neck. But how does it add up? Blind composer Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen), the boyfriend of the first victim, aims to find out and his investigation leads him on the trail of a mysterious woman in a white hooded cape named Susan (Giovanna Lenzi). But what connection does Susan have to these models? Why would she want them dead? And how can she kill without even entering the room? The answers will lead Peter into a dangerous world of drugs, money, and blackmail!

The Crimes of the Black Cat (which often goes by its rhyming Italian title, Sette Scialli Di Seta Gialla, or Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk) is a fantastic giallo in the classic mode, even if it borrows heavily from other films. The killer's method comes from the 1940 Bela Lugosi film The Devil Bat, The fashion house setting and most of the plot comes from Blood and Black Lace, the blind detective can be traced to Cat O'Nine Tails, a slow-motion shot of a woman going head-first through a window comes from every Argento movie ever, and the brutal and highly graphic shower murder is an obvious homage to Psycho.  But even though it appropriates all these elements, The Crimes of the Black Cat synthesizes them in a clever way and it turns out to be a very satisfying movie, highly indicative of the genre.

• Check out the scene where Peter's assistant, Burton (Umberto Raho) is chasing Susan and she disappears when a rack of clothes passes in front of her. Yet another clever touch lifted from Blood and Black Lace.
• There's not a lot of bad art in this movie. In fact, it looks like Peter owns a Mondrian.
• There's a tense scene near the end where Peter is kidnapped and left alone in a closed glass factory. One false move and he'll fall into a pit of broken glass and the kidnapper uses the facility's machinery to try to knock him down. It's a great, suspenseful scene.

What the Hell Am I Watching?

Model Paula Whitney (Isabelle Marchall) is the first victim. Before she dies, her only line in the movie is a nasty homophobic slur against a co-worker.

That shower scene really is the thing that sticks with you, as it doesn't pull any punches. Unlike Marion's murder in Psycho, we see a razor blade tear deep into the victim's body in visceral detail in The Crimes of the Black Cat.

 Fashion Moment

This movie has a giallo killer who wears the classic all-black coat and hat, but it also turns that tradition on its head with a villain in white. Check out Susan's trademark hooded cape.