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Le Foto Proibite di una Signora per Bene
The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion
Italy/Spain 1970
produced by Alberto Pugliese, Luciano Ercoli for Produzioni Cinematografiche Mediterranee (PCM), Trébol Films
directed by Luciano Ercoli
starring Dagmar Lassander, Pier Paolo Capponi, Simón Andreu, Susan Scott (= Nieves Navarro), Osvaldo Genazzani, Salvador Huguet
written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Mahnahén Velasco, music by Ennio Morricone, conducted by Bruno Nicolai
review by Mike Haberfelner
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One evening when going out on her own, Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is
threatened by a man (Simón Andreu) who first seems to try to rape her,
then though he lets go of her but claims that he has proof that her
husband Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi) is a killer. And indeed, a few days
later, the man calls her and plays her a tape that would prove that her
husband has killed a loanshark whom he owed a considerable sum of money,
and he wants to blackmail her. Minou agrees to meet him, a photographer,
in his studio. But her blackmailer doesn't want her money, he wants sex,
and reluctantly, Minou gives in to his dirty demands, to save her husband.
After sex, Minou really gets the tape, but a few days later, she
receives photos of herself having sex with her blackmailer - and at the
same time the blackmailer tells her the tape was a fake. She confides in
her best friend Dominique (Susan Scott), who curiously enough has a porn
pic of the blackmailer in her collection, and Dominique persuades her to
confess everything to her husband.
With the help of Dominique, Minou tells her husband everything, and
though he is (understandably) shocked that his wife believed him to be a
killer and had sex with another man, he understands and persuades
her go to the police. But once she has told her story, all the evidence
seems to disappear: the blackmailer's studio appears to be empty, and has
been so for many years, the porn pic of him that Dominique gave Minou has
disappeared, and when the blackmailer calls again and Minou hands the
phone over to the inspector (Osvaldo Genazzani), his voice has turned into
the speaking clock. So before long, everybody
believes that Minou is slightly mad - and the pills she is continuously
popping seem to only confirm that. Minou even starts to doubt herself -
but then one night when Peter's out, the blackmailer pays a social visit,
and turns out to be very real, pinning Minou to the floor and starting to
torture her with a knife - and her chances to survive this couldn't
be grimmer ...
A quite entertaining little thriller that keeps tension and suspense
high throughout in uniformly stylish images - but what really makes this
one is its plot: Sure, the premise as such isn't exactly original and has
been turned into countless movies in all corners of the pulp universe, but
it has rarely been turned into a script that works quite like a perfect
clockwork as this one and that after a certain suspension of disbelief
that comes with the genre doesn't feel at all forced at the same time. And
of course, a very strong cast also helps to really bring this to
fruitition. Well worth a look for sure!
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