Blood and Black Lace

Not many directors can lay claim to creating a new genre, but with Blood and Black Lace (Sei Donne Per L'assassino, 1964) Mario Bava pioneered the uniquely Italian brand of mystery-thriller known as the giallo. Named after Italian pulp magazines and paperbacks that sported lurid illustrations on bright yellow covers (giallo means yellow), the giallo films' emphasis on sensational murder sequences would in turn strongly influence the development of the slasher films that dominated American horror cinema for over a decade starting in the late 1970's. Thus, Bava's milestone may be said to be the progenitor of the seemingly endless Halloween and Friday the 13th series and their imitators-but try not to hold that against him. Viewed today, Blood and Black Lace is a flawed film redeemed by Bava's consummate mastery of cinematic technique. Isabella, a model at the Christian fashion salon, is brutally murdered by a masked figure clad in black. The police find themselves with an abundance of suspects, as almost everyone working at or associated with the salon has something to hide. More murders follow when Isabella's secret diary is discovered by another of the models. Determined to crack the case, the police round up all of their suspects and hold them overnight-but the killer strikes yet again. As Tim Lucas points out in his excellent commentary track, Blood and Black Lace was influenced by the huge success of Psycho, with its shocking murder scenes, and the popular Edgar Wallace "krimi" films that were then being made in West Germany. In addition to devising more elaborate and violent murder scenes to "top" Hitchock, Bava and screenwriter Marcello Fondato appear to have focused their efforts on subverting audience expectations. There are few sympathetic characters and no pretty young heroine. There is no brilliant detective who solves the mystery and explains everything to the audience. There are almost no clues to follow, and the one that would traditionally be the key to story-the diary-is quickly destroyed. Bava and Fondato successfully avoid genre cliches, but they create a new problem: there is little in the script to engage the audience emotionally or intellectually. None of the many characters get enough screen time for us to develop much of an interest in them; most are either killed or simply disappear from the story after two or three scenes. Character development is usually limited to a few lines of dialogue explaining who someone is, then a few more lines later on revealing whatever secret he or she is concealing. Trying to unravel the mystery is essentially pointless, since we aren't given sufficient information to deduce the killer's identity, just a lot of suspicious behavior to mislead us. Ultimately, Blood and Black Lace is only truly engaging on the aesthetic level. Fortunately, this is Bava's strong suit, and he imbues the film with a rich, sensuous visual style that makes one willing to overlook flaws in the script. Most commentators on the film single out its bold use of color, for good reason. Throughout the 30's, 40's and 50's, it was widely believed that black & white was best for dark, moody subjects, while color was best for musicals and historical spectacles. Bava defies convention and employs color in vivid, at times expressionistic, ways for his suspense thriller. The most memorable example is perhaps the scene in which a model, Nicole (Ariana Gorini), is pursued by the killer in an antiques shop at night. Most of the scene is lit with a flashing green light (supposedly from a neon sign outside); other parts of the shop are bathed in magenta. The effect is to transform the everyday location into a nightmare landscape, the familiar into something grotesque and threatening. Bava also uses color in more subtle ways, with black and red, colors associated with death and blood, accenting scenes in key pieces of décor and wardrobe throughout the film. Bright red female mannequins, for example, appear in the fashion salon, suggesting the blood that runs just underneath the skin and the terrible vulnerability of the human form. Color is by no means the only stylistic tool Bava uses. Elegant tracking and crane shots, reportedly created with a child's wagon and improvised teeter-totter rigs, prowl through the sets. Compositions create an uneasy sense of vulnerability during the suspense scenes. In the aforementioned sequence in the antiques shop, for example, Bava frames the clutter of the environment to evoke both the feeling of a maze and to suggest dozens of possible hiding places for the killer. Fortunately, crash zooms, a technique Bava overused in some of his later work, are used sparingly in Blood and Black Lace. Shock cuts, used endlessly in today's horror films, are also used with discretion. When they do appear they have maximum impact, as when Bava abruptly cuts to one of the murders already in progress, the victim staring at the viewer in an unforgettable close-up. All in all the film is a stunning showcase for Bava's directorial talents. The cast, including Cameron Mitchell, Thomas Reiner, Dante DiPaolo and Mary Arden, do the best they can with their underwritten parts. Most of the male roles have defining quirks-drug addiction, unrequited love, etc.-that allow the actors to sketch their characters in quick strokes. Eva Bartok gives the standout performance as Christina Como, manager of the salon. Bartok has remarkably expressive eyes that convey fear, dread, remorse and longing far more effectively than any dialogue ever could. Also contributing greatly to the film is Carlo Rustichelli's score, built around a tango theme first heard in the opening credits. Fans will be happy to learn that the score is about to be released on CD, paired with Rustichelli's score for Bava's The Whip and the Body (La Frusta e il Corpo, 1963). VCI's 2-disc DVD of Blood and Black Lace, which they are calling the "Unslashed Collector's Edition", is a reworking of their earlier release from 2000. The transfer appears to be culled from a release print (possibly more than one) and not pre-print elements. The image is slightly soft and contrasty, with dark areas that are a little murky and lacking detail. The color is fair. Hues are a little on the blue side, but reasonably accurate. The color is slightly more garish than Bava intended, lacking the more subtle gradations of color found in the best Bava transfers. Overall, it looks as if faded source materials have been pumped up by the colorist. (In some shots, skin tones almost glow.) There are many superficial scratches and other minor damage throughout the film, particularly at reel changes, but most of it is unobtrusive. VCI's earlier disc was flat letterboxed. This new release is 16 x 9 enhanced, but the mediocre resolution and significant video grain makes it look as if a flat transfer has been bumped up and reformatted. At 57 minutes into the film, two brief flat letterboxed shots appear, further suggesting that this may not be a true 16 x 9 transfer. The disc offers a selection of English, Italian and French dialogue tracks. The Italian offers the overall best sound and is recommended by this reviewer as the preferred listening choice. The English track, in which almost all of the male parts are dubbed by legendary voice artist Paul Frees, is fairly clear for a 40-year old dub track to a low-budget film. The synch is a little loose, which is not uncommon for a dubbed film, but during the final scene it seems significantly off. The French track sounds the worst, with tinny dialogue. Note that when using the remote to select audio tracks (instead of choosing from the menu), the Italian track is mistakenly labeled as the French, and vice-versa. The English subtitles are based upon the English dub track instead of being a translation of the Italian; Spanish subtitles are also available. There are many extras, most of them ported over from the earlier release. Disc One features Mario Bava biographer Tim Lucas' exemplary commentary, the American trailer, some brief text biographies and trailers for other VCI releases. Disc Two has an excerpt from an interview with Cameron Mitchell conducted by David Del Valle, a video interview with Mary Dawne Arden, foreign trailers, alternate title sequences, a still and poster gallery, music tracks from the score, and a comparison of the film's cut and uncut versions. For fans who already own the earlier release, this disc is not enough of an improvement to merit a new purchase. However, for those who do not yet own the film, the low retail price ($14.99) makes the disc a good bargain in spite of the shortcomings of the transfer. The uninitiated may want to consider a rental first, as the strong violent content is definitely not for all tastes.