Blood and Black Lace
Encyclopedia
Blood and Black Lace is a 1964
1964 in film
The year 1964 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 29 - The film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is released....

 Italian
Cinema of Italy
The history of Italian cinema began just a few months after the Lumière brothers had patented their Cinematographe, when Pope Leo XIII was filmed for a few seconds in the act of blessing the camera.-Early years:...

 thriller film directed by Mario Bava
Mario Bava
Mario Bava was an Italian director, screenwriter, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.-Biography:Mario Bava was born in San Remo, Liguria, Italy...

. Bava cowrote the screenplay with Giuseppe Barilla and Marcello Fondato
Marcello Fondato
Marcello Fondato was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He wrote for 46 films between 1958 and 1986. He also directed nine films between 1968 and 1986...

. The film stars Cameron Mitchell
Cameron Mitchell (actor)
Cameron Mitchell was an American film, television and Broadway actor with close ties to one of Canada's most successful families, and considered, by Lee Strasberg, to be one of the founding members of The Actor's Studio in New York City.-Early life and career:Born Cameron MacDowell Mitzel in...

 and Eva Bartok
Eva Bartok
Eva Bartok , born Eva Ivanova Szöke, was an actress born in Budapest, Hungary. She began acting in films in 1950 and her last credited appearance was in 1966...

. The story concerns the stalking and brutal murders of various scantily-clad fashion models
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

, 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 giallo
Giallo
Giallo is an Italian 20th century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery. In the English language it refers to a genre similar to the French fantastique genre and includes elements of horror fiction and eroticism...

s
, and served as a stylistic template for the “body count” slasher film
Slasher film
A slasher film is a type of horror film typically involving a psychopathic killer stalking and killing a sequence of victims in a graphically violent manner, often with a cutting tool such as a knife or axe...

s of the 1980’s. Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas
Tim Lucas is a film critic, biographer, novelist, screenwriter, blogger, and publisher/editor of the video review magazine Video Watchdog.-Biography and early career:...

 has noted that the film has "gone on to inspire legions of contemporary filmmakers, from Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....

 to Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...

 to Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...

." In 2004, one of its sequences was voted #85 among "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" by the Bravo Channel.

Plot

Isabella (Francesca Ungaro), 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 (Thomas Reiner) is assigned to investigate the murder and he interviews Max Marian (Mitchell), the manager who co-manages the salon with his lover, the recently widowed Countess Cristina Como (Bartok). Max attests that he can not provide any information whatsoever that can assist the inspector, but as the investigation continues all of the fashion house’s various sins, 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 (Ariana Gorini) finds the diary, and she promises to provide it to the police, but Peggy (Mary Arden
Mary Arden (actress)
Mary Dawne Arden is a former American actress, who worked in both Hollywood and Italy. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but moved to NYC at the age of 12 to attend an art school....

) manages to steal it from her purse during work. That night, Nicole drives to an antique store owned by her paramour, Frank (Dante DiPaolo). 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 told the truth, she tries to pick up a telephone to call for help. Enraged, the murderer hits her over and over again 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 (Lea Krugher) 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 Cristina 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 Cristina 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, Cristina had murdered Greta to give Max an alibi for the previous killings. Now, Max tells Cristina that he once again needs her help and convinces her that after only one more death they will be safe. That night, the voluptuous Tao-Li (Claude Dantes) is drowned in her bathtub by the masked killer who, immediately after the murder, removes the mask and is revealed as Cristina. She uses a razor blade to slice the corpse’s wrists in order to make the death seem like a suicide. Cristina 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 Cristina’s desk, looking for money and documents. Suddenly, a bloody and bruised Cristina enters the room, shakily holding a gun aimed directly at Max. Max had been the “policeman” knocking on Tao-Li’s front door and, knowing how Cristina 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 Cristina collapses next to Max's corpse.

Production

Mario Bava’s Black Sunday (1960) and Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath (film)
The motion picture Black Sabbath, whose Italian title, I Tre volti della paura, translates as The Three Faces of Fear, is a 1963 Italian horror film directed by Mario Bava. Boris Karloff, in addition to appearing in the linking passages, has a role in "The Wurdalak" segment...

(1963) were world wide 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
Films based on Edgar Wallace works
The Edgar Wallace movies are motion pictures based on the works of British novelist and playwright Edgar Wallace.Even though there are countless film adaptations of Edgar Wallace novels worldwide, the crime films produced by the German company Rialto Film between 1959 and 1972 are the best-known of...

-tradition. In Europe during the early 1960’s, movies based on the murder mystery novels of the incredibly prolific Wallace had become a mini-genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

 of their own. Forty 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.

But Bava was "bored by the mechanical nature of the whodunit
Whodunit
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the puzzle is the main feature of interest. The reader or viewer is provided with clues from which the identity of the perpetrator of the crime may be deduced before the solution is revealed in the final...

" and decided to deemphasize the more accepted cliché
Cliché
A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning,...

s 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. Inspired by Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

’s Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...

, Bava made sure that all of his gorgeous victims were partially unclothed at the time of their deaths.

Under the working title of L'atelier della morte (The Fashion House of Death), the movie was filmed in a six-week period between November 1963 and January 1964, filmed at the Villa Pamphili
Villa Doria Pamphili
The Villa Doria Pamphili is a seventeenth century villa with what is today the largest landscaped public park in Rome, Italy. It is located in the quarter of Monteverde, on the Gianicolo , just outside the Porta San Pancrazio in the ancient walls of Rome where the ancient road of the Via Aurelia...

 on the Gianicolo, one of the Seven hills of Rome
Seven hills of Rome
The Seven Hills of Rome east of the river Tiber form the geographical heart of Rome, within the walls of the ancient city.The seven hills are:* Aventine Hill * Caelian Hill...

.
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 shot
Crane shot
In filmmaking and video production a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane. The most obvious uses are to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, a common way of ending a movie. Some filmmakers like to have the camera on a boom arm just to make it easier to move...

s by utilizing a "makeshift seesaw contraption."

The script was written in English in order to allow easier exportation to the United States. All of the cast members spoke their lines in English, some of them phonetically. However, after the production was completed, the original English-language soundtrack was not utilized for the U.S. release prints. A completely new dubbing track was produced in Los Angeles under the supervision of Lou Moss. Nearly all of the male voices were provided by Paul Frees
Paul Frees
Paul Frees was an American voice actor and character actor.-Biography:He was born Solomon Hersh Frees in Chicago...

.

Cast

  • Cameron Mitchell
    Cameron Mitchell (actor)
    Cameron Mitchell was an American film, television and Broadway actor with close ties to one of Canada's most successful families, and considered, by Lee Strasberg, to be one of the founding members of The Actor's Studio in New York City.-Early life and career:Born Cameron MacDowell Mitzel in...

     as Max Marian
  • Eva Bartok
    Eva Bartok
    Eva Bartok , born Eva Ivanova Szöke, was an actress born in Budapest, Hungary. She began acting in films in 1950 and her last credited appearance was in 1966...

     as Christina
  • Thomas Reiner as Inspector Silvester
  • Ariana Gorini as Nicole
  • Dante DiPaolo as Frank
  • Mary Arden
    Mary Arden (actress)
    Mary Dawne Arden is a former American actress, who worked in both Hollywood and Italy. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, but moved to NYC at the age of 12 to attend an art school....

     as Peggy
  • Franco Ressel as Marquis Richard Morell
  • Lea Krugher as Greta
  • Claude Dantes as Tao-Li

  • Massimo Righi as Marco
  • Giuliano Raffaelli as Zanchin
  • Harriette White Medin as Clarice
  • Luciano Pigozzi
    Luciano Pigozzi
    Luciano Pigozzi is an Italian film actor. He appeared in 105 films between 1954 and 1989. He was often credited under the pseudonym Alan Collins and occasionally Alan Collin....

     as Cesar Losarre
  • Francesca Ungaro as Isabella
  • Mary Carmosino as Model
  • Heidi Stroh as Blond Model
  • Enzo Cerusico as Gas Station Attendant
  • Nadia Anty as Model


Response

In Italy, Blood and Black Lace was a box office
Box office
A box office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through an unblocked hole through a wall or window, or at a wicket....

 failure, grossing only 123 million lire
Italian lira
The lira was the currency of Italy between 1861 and 2002. Between 1999 and 2002, the Italian lira was officially a “national subunit” of the euro...

 (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
Home video
Home video is a blanket term used for pre-recorded media that is either sold or rented/hired for home cinema entertainment. The term originates from the VHS/Betamax era but has carried over into current optical disc formats like DVD and Blu-ray Disc and, to a lesser extent, into methods of digital...

 release. In West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

 the film was a moderate financial success and helped convince the backers to film their subsequent Edgar Wallace-styled whodunits in color.

Because of the film's titillating combination of near-naked women and gory murder, American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...

 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'..." The film was instead distributed in the U.S. by the Woolner Brothers
Woolner Brothers
The Woolner Brothers were an American film releasing company formed in 1955 made up of Lawrence , Bernard , and David Woolner. After US Army service in World War II Lawrence started a New Orleans drive-in theatre in 1948...

 (producers Lawrence and Bernard Woolner). Woolner Brothers released the movie after making only one minor change-- the somewhat mundane original title sequence was replaced with a gory piece of semi-animation supplied by Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass
Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc. , also known as Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment, was an American production company, known for its seasonal television specials, particularly its work in stop-motion animation. The pre-1974 library is currently owned by Classic Media,while the post-1974 library is...

, featuring mannequins becoming riddled with bloody bullet holes.

The film received a generally mixed response at the time of its initial release from the few critics who bothered to review it. In The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

,
A.H. Weiler 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." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

felt it was an "okay mystery...handsomely produced..." Monthly Film Bulletin
Monthly Film Bulletin
The Monthly Film Bulletin was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a narrow arthouse release. The MFB was edited in the mid-1950s by David Robinson, in the late...

noted that the film was Bava's "most expensive-looking and decorative horror film to date."

The movie is often noted as an important title in the development of the giallo, and is considered to be one of the major movies of the so-called “Golden Age” of Italian Horror. Almar Haflidason, reviewing the film for BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

.co.uk, 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." Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. He started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacities in such major films as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941...

, 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.” In Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...

, Fernando F. Croce 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.” Nathaniel Thompson commented on his Mondo Digital review website: “A stripped down, delirious tour of a candy-colored murder zone, this was really the first film to merge the fashion world with ritualistic murders, and none of its imitators have managed to capture the same level of intensity."

Bava’s mixture of eroticism and violence would prove a potent 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." Derek Hill, in his review of the film for the Images website, observed: "Equipped with his colored gels
Color gel
A color gel or color filter , also known as lighting gel or simply gel, is a transparent colored material that is used in theatre, event production, photography, videography and cinematography to color light and for color correction...

and his predatory camera, Bava arguably created the slasher subgenre and kicked down the door for subsequent directors to stick in their cinematic blades as well, for better or worse."

External links

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