6 donne per l'assassino

Plot synopsis:
At a chic 'haute couture' fashion house in Rome, model Isabella (Francesca Ungaro) is brutally murdered one night during a raging thunderstorm by a mysterious figure dressed in black, wearing a mask. The body is discovered locked in a storage locker by the owner: the recently widowed Countess Christina Como (Eva Bartok), which is managed by Massimo Morlacchi (Cameron Mitchell). Inspector Silvestri (Thomas Reiner), an arrogant police detective, arrives to take charge of the murder investigation. Silvestri soon discovers that the fashion house is a hotbed to drugs, corruption, and blackmail. The suspects include Massimo, the wealthy Ricardo Morellin (Frnaco Ressel), who was having an affair with Isabella, the dress designer Cesar Lazzarini (Louis Pigot), and Isabella's boyfriend Frank (Dante Di Paolo) an antique shop owner who sold cocaine to some of the models on a daily basis, as well as the handyman Marco (Massimo Righi).The following evening during a fashion show, when it is discovered that Isabella kept a diary which detailed most of the indiscretions, everyone is thrown into a quandary. Initially, the diary falls into the hands of Nicole (Ariana Gorini), one of the models, who promises to take it to the police. But another model, named Peggy (Mary Arden), manages to obtain it unnoticed. Later that night, Nicole goes to visit Frank at his antique shop. While there, she is terrorized by strange sounds and fleeting shadows. Before she can escape, she is attacked and killed by the same mysterious figure dressed in black who whacks her in the face with a clawed antique mallet. Finding that the dead girl doesn't have the diary on her, the killer steals Nicole's car, setting off the burglar alarm, and drives away. The killer is witnessed by a gas station attendant nearby.Across town, Peggy arrives at her apartment from the fashion show where she lives with Nicole and Tao-Li (Claude Dantes). While Tao-Li goes off to a party, Peggy is met by boyfriend Marco. Peggy tells Marco that she doesn't want to go out with him tonight, and he leaves. Alone, Peggy reads some of Isabelle's diary which a page details her blackmail dealings with a mysterious boyfriend. Peggy then burns the diary by throwing into her fireplace. The killer arrives, and kidnaps Peggy in her apartment. Refuses to believe that she burned the diary, the killer takes Peggy to the apartment building's basement and proceeds to torture her. But when Peggy grabs the killers mask (we don't see his face) he puts his mask back on and kills her by burning her face on a heated red-hot furnace.Meanwhile, Frank arrives at his antique shop and discovers Nicole's dead body. He flees without notifying the police to Ricardo Morellins' house to ask him to supply an alibi for him. Morellin refuses, but Frank threatens to expose him for stealing money from Isabella. Frank calls Inspector Silvestri, who arrests him on suspicion of killing Nicole, as well as dealing drugs. Frustrated, Silvestri has all the five suspects, Massimo, Marco, Morellin, Frank, and Caesar arrested.But that evening, Greta (Lea Kruger), the fiancée of Morellin, drives home where in the truck of her car, she discovers the burned body of Peggy. Fearing the police will think she did it, Greta carries the body inside her house, where she hides it. Greta soon gets murdered by the same black-clad figure who breaks into the villa who smothers her with a pillow.The next morning, Silvestri arrives at the villa where he concludes that since the murder was committed with all the suspects in jail, none of them can be guilty. After Massimo returns home, he is greeted by Christina where its revealed that Massimo really is the killer after all. Massimo had previously assisted Christina to murder her husband so she could inherit the fashion house. But apparently Isabella discovered this and began blackmailing Massimo, among other people with scandalous secrets. When her blackmail demands became too much, he murdered her, not realizing that she had written everything down in her diary. Although Massimo murdered Nicole and Peggy too, it was Christina who dons the killer's black coat and mask to murder Greta to throw off suspicion from her lover. Yet, Massimo knows hes not out of danger yet. So, he asks Christina to don the mask and coat one last time to murder another model to further frustrate the police.That evening, Christina, wearing the mask and black coat, surprises Tao-Li in her apartment and forcibly drowns her in the bathtub, and subsequently slits her wrists to make it look like a suicide. As Christina prepares to leave, she is startled by a knock on the front door. She attempts to bypass the visitor by escaping by the roof. But Christina loses her footing on the ledge, and falls to the ground. The visitor is Massimo, who has instigated a cunning plan to lure Christina into a trap where she will be killed while killing another model, and make it look that shes is the real killer, while he takes over the fashion house for himself.Confident that all his problems have been solved, Massimo sets about looting Christinas valuables. While in the process of doing so, he is startled by a noise. Looking up, he sees Christina standing before him. Massimo is dumb-struck and Christina explains, the show awning broke my fall. Bloodied from a head wound and trembling in pain, she confront her worthless lover with his treachery, and he naturally tries to smooth-talk his way out of the situation. As they embrace, she realizes his true nature when she sees him pulling a knife out of his coat pocket to stab her in a mirror reflection, and she shoots him to death. Subsequently, as she tries to phone Inspector Silvestri, Christina succumbs to the fatality of her wounds.

Tags: mystery, cruelty, murder, cult, horror, violence, insanity, suspenseful, sadist

Review:
Influential killer thriller from Italian horror master Mario Bava is a stylish genre landmark.A faceless murderer is killing models associated with a fashion house.
The jazzy, atmospheric music score is also a nice touch and the performances of the cast aren't bad.Over all, an entertaining early giallo and one of Bava's best contributions to Italian horror.
An upper-crust European fashion salon is having a devil of a time keeping girls working for it in this unique, visually breath-taking Mario Bava film.
Mario Bava was an innovator in horror and general cinema whose visual style continues to influence.Blood & Black Lace(1964) offered audiences in early 1960s a candy coding spectacle of death and violence.
There are few filmmakers out there with exception of Dario Argento and Martin Scorsese who are able to incorporate color into film with artistic flair like Mario Bava was able to do.Suspense in murder sequences is manufactured via extreme colors and physical intensity.
Blood & Black Lace(1964) stands out in giallo genre because of artistic touch and visceral flamboyance.On the surface, the Haute Couture Fashion House is a place of idealized beauty and social priviledge.
Aristocrats in Blood and Black Lace(1964) and other Bava films appears to be patterned after Mussolini regime.Effect on Italian horror was slow but reached cinematic importance with emergence of Dario Argento's Bird with the Crystal Plumage in 1969.
"Blood and Black Lace" is a giallo film directed by Mario Bava and one of his best movies.
A Fashion House is being plagued by a mysterious masked serial killer who is picking the girls off one by one in a variety of gruesome waysWhy this Maniac is killing these girls is academic to the plot, as this film is STYLE driven and what style it is too..we are of course as in any good thriller suspicious of everyoneIs the Killer a Man a Woman or is there more than one Killer.Bava takes great pleasure in teasing us into believing all of these at some stageThis is the Third film in my indoctrination into Mario Bava and it is again no disappointment..Bava's use of light and shadow and of mirrors and reflection is stunning and never has colour been used so brilliantly and not just gaudy reds blues purples yellows but subtle use of pastels tooThe fashion scene is perfect for Bava's visual flair with its very beautiful models and Haute Couture and both are given sublime treatment.The score is also very memorable and reminiscent of Henry Mancini at his bestThe killer bears an uncanny resemblance to Freddie Krueger only much better..now don't tell me he wasn't an influence on the makers of Nightmare on elm street..Even though this was dubbed it has one of the best dubbings I have seen and is not intrusive on the film.
Blood and Black Lace (1964) **** (out of 4) Mario Bava's ground-breaking murder-mystery takes place around a model agency where one by one women begin to be murdered by a person dressed in black and a haunting white mask.
It really just seems as if the camera is floating from one scene to the next in a poetic way that captures the beauty of everything we're seeing on the screen but also ties everything together.BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is one of those landmark films that has been copied dozens of times over the years but it's lost none of its luster.
Cameron Mitchell heads a haute couture fashion salon where the models are being murdered by a psychotic killer in a black hat, black coat and stocking mask; seems the first victim left behind a diary, which the maniac desperately wants.
French-Italian co-production directed and co-written by Mario Bava (who also assisted in the cinematography) has a sterling reputation among Giallo buffs and slasher fans, but the robotic English dubbing coupled with the blinking neon lights and melodramatic music by Carlo Rustichelli gives the picture a thick coating of kitsch.
Chilling and brilliant!!!Even with its couple of distracting weak points, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is worth seeing for any fan of horror/thriller/slasher films.
Mario Bava is one of the greatest Horror directors of all-time, and this particular film is perfection in every aspect, be it the unique atmosphere and stylish color-play or the great score.
Directed by one of the Horror genre's greatest icons, Mario Bava, "Blood And Black Lace" is a Giallo classic, that every true lover of cinema should see.
It's often said that Mario Bava spawned the Giallo sub-genre in 1963 with his brilliant thriller 'The Girl Who Knew Too Much', but he didn't finish creating it until a year later when he made this film!
The police suspect that her boyfriend is the killer, but upon the discovery of Isabella's diary, which supposedly contains incriminating evidence relating to the crime, the murder spree continues - leading the police to suspect every male member of the fashion house.The plot line in Blood and Black Lace is somewhat routine, but that doesn't matter as the most important thing about this film is undoubtedly the atmosphere.
Blood and Black Lace is a visceral, and extremely beautiful movie experience - it's hard to imagine that brutal savagery could be so nice to look at, but Bava has managed to make that so!
Originally titled 'Six Women for the Killer', this Mario Bava film is often cited as the movie that pioneered the giallo horror subgenre with a plot that places more emphasis on gruesome murders than catching a killer.
Of course, many will be quick to point out that narratives are always a secondary consideration in gialli, but when one considers what Dario Argento was able of achieve in years to come with films like 'Suspiria' and 'Tenebrae' that managed to wrestle good performances and a decent plot into the giallo formula, it is hard not to mentally compare and contrast.
Certainly, if viewed with minimal expectations, there is a lot to like about 'Blood and Black Lace'; it is simply hard not to expect something more revolutionary from a film that kick-started an iconic movie trend..
I don't know why it took me so long to see this little gem, considering that firstly it was made by one of my favourite Italian directors Mario Bava and that it's considered one of the most important Giallo films and now that it has been released on Arrow films with a restored print, instead of trying to view with a not so great picture quality, and after viewing it I was pleasantly surprised by firstly at how beautiful it looked in its rich vivid colours and considering it was made in 1963, it doesn't look dated at all and very stylish.The storyline here is that on one stormy night a young model is murdered outside a lavish fashion house where she works with a group of other young models and this sparks a chain of events when her diary goes missing which reveals the sordid details of what's going on with the people who work there and not long after more women start to get murdered.This movie is definitely entertaining and relies heavily on its camera-work, set designs, artwork and lighting, all of which creates the perfect atmosphere.
I have no complaints with this, only that I would say that the first half of the movie where the majority of the murders takes place is definitely stronger than the second half, which does have a neat little twist at the end which most Giallo's have and given that this movie was the one that started that started that trend, so that was pretty neat and makes this one of the strongest and influence shall of the genre.With a strong cast including Cameron Mitchell and Eva Bartok, 'Blood And Black Lace' is a very beautiful and violent movie where Bava really excels himself as a director and showing off his unique visual style on what otherwise would be a sub-standard script, and okay this may not be the best or most riveting of the genre, but it is very decent and it does pull you into this manic world that Bava has created within this universe..
****SPOILERS****Filmed in lush and dazzling colors and mostly, some 90% of it, at night the late Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace" set the slandered for all the likewise Italian as well as US & European Giallo slasher movies that was to follow it.
Set in an Italian boarding house for fashion models run by Contessa Cristina Como, Eva Bartok, and her American lover Max Marian,Cameron Mitchell,a crazed and masked killer targets the woman staying there starting with Isabella,Francesca Ungaro,whom he strangles to death within the first 10 minutes of the movie.
As we soon find out it was Isabella who knew the killer's identity who she was blackmailing for embezzlement money of the boarding house's way of doing business.The film goes on to have the masked killer knock off some half dozen of the woman at the boarding house until with almost a half hour to go in the movie to no one's surprise-It was very obvious right from the start- that his identity is revealed as well as the person-Which wasn't that obvious- who's involved in his string of murders!
"Blood and Black Lace" is a stylish Mario Bava's giallo.It combines wonderful colour visuals and violent murder set pieces with the iconography of the genre such as the trenchcoated,masked and black gloved killer.The film is extremely atmospheric and the killings are fairly brutal and intense.Bava's incredible use of colours and the beautiful sets and costumes are also visible here.The acting is very good and the music perfectly captures the mood of this film."Blood and Black Lace" is surely one of the most important giallos ever made.A must-see for fans of Italian horror.10 out of 10..
Italian horror maestro Mario Bava establishes the common motifs of the Giallo genre in this landmark film, often argued as single-handedly creating that said genre (I would argue "The Girl Who Knew Too Much" did, but either way it's still Mario Bava as the author and inventor).From a historical standpoint, this film is very important to film scholars and genre enthusiasts - we see a new genre in the making.However, if we remove the film from the historical context that surrounds it, the film is admittedly rather shallow as Bava certainly prefers style over substance.Indeed, the plot's major flaw is that it lacks any protagonist (or any character in general) for the viewer to identify with, thus causing a lack of focus - we are shown a multitude of characters with no real connection to one another, thus no wholeness is established.However, the visuals are staggering with rooms bathed in bright florescent lighting, costumes given bold hues, sets and props made of singular colors (the red mannequin), and smoothly executed camera shots.
In typical Bava fashion, he basically invented the giallo with his 1964 mystery slasher "Blood and Black Lace." I finally found this film and the version is spectacular, it's a 2-disc special edition from a company called VCI.
Unlike the preceding three Bava viewings, I recall loving this one immediately regardless, and it remains even now my personal favourite of his oeuvre While there are definite links to the contemporaneous "Krimi" trend (this was, in actual fact, a German co-production) and the work of Alfred Hitchcock (the technical dexterity, audience manipulation, and even having the murderer repeatedly 'clean up' after his misdeeds – like Anthony Perkins in PSYCHO {1960}), there is so much groundwork here for subsequent entries in the field that one cannot stress too much the film's impact on the development of the thriller genre worldwidehowever, without it ever seeming an outmoded prototype or coming across as a stuffy history lesson.
Anyway, it is all pretty much laid down here already: the black-gloved killer, the fashion-house setting, the Police procedural, a variety of suspects (each determined to safeguard a terrible secret), the suggestion of misogyny (rendered unequivocal by the original Italian title – which translates to "Six Women For The Murderer"!), the splash of colours (including – inevitably – crimson), the creative murder weapons, the tantalizing soundtrack (to my mind, this constitutes Carlo Rustichelli's finest hour), not to mention the twist in the tail (which was still being ripped off more than 30 years later by the likes of Wes Craven!).
Bava's mise-en-scene here is near-perfection, letting the camera prowl the various sets in search of nail-biting suspense situations (notably a woman's handbag containing an incriminating diary being left unattended on a table during a fashion show and then disappearing while props are being moved around in the atelier) or the next display of sadistic – but not gloating – violence (indeed, seldom has death been so enthusiastically arranged or lovingly photographed on screen!).With this in mind and as had been the case with Bava's Gothic Horror debut BLACK Sunday (1960), given such a seminal title, one tends to overlook any flaws (which may be down to plot logic – why, if everyone fears what the diary could expose of their various foibles, do the other characters not try to get hold of it like the killer?
"Blood and Black Lace" is the creepy story of a killer who is stalking and killing fashion models.
BLOOD AND THE BLACK LACE is a mysterious horror film, which is based on a series of brutal murders, drug trafficking and unconvincing police investigation.
Mario Bava's "Blood and Black Lace" (or "Sei donne per l'assassino") may not be the first giallo (Italian crime story/horror story hybrid) ever made, but it was the first one to introduce to the gialli what would become one of it's most famous trademarks: the rich use of colors.
So far, murder mysteries were usually in black and white, and many people believed that these type of films wouldn't work with the visual stravaganza of a 1940's musical, but Bava proved otherwise by painting the shadows with the colors of Hell, and creating what would be one of the most influential and important entries in the horror genre.
One of Bava's best movies, Blood and Black Lace is sometimes cruel, sometimes sadistic, but always gorgeous to look at.
While it is not a particularly gory film, Bava does a phenomenal job with the models' death scenes, crafting what may be among the most beautiful murders in film history.Overall, "Blood and Black Lace" is a rightfully sung genre classic; in my opinion, it is one of Mario Bava's greatest achievements, chock full of luscious supermodels, a sprawling mansion, and a masked killer with a vendetta.
"Blood and Black Lace" is a visually impressive but vacuous giallo tale from Italian "master of horror" Mario Bava.
After watching a number of films from this director, I've come to the conclusion that Bava's movies just aren't my cup of tea.In "Blood and Black Lace", the acting is wooden, the flimsy plot creaks along without any real tension and the whole experience just feels....flat.
Cited as the most prominent ancestor to the slasher movie (sorry, "Psycho"), "Blood and Black Lace" is more than just a stalk-and-slash splatter fest; it is also an artistic orgasm for the inimitable Mario Bava, a director so obsessed with the connection between romanticism and horror that his films, more often than not, found themselves as drenched in Technicolor mystique as they did claustrophobic shadows.
Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace is one of the earliest examples of the Italian genre known as "giallo," as well as one of the earliest slasher films.
When Countess Cristina Como (Eva Bartok) finds Isabella's diary amongst her belongings, tensions run high, and a wave of corruption, drug abuse and blackmail is slowly uncovered as the body count piles up and the killer searches for the diary.Generally considered as one of the most influential giallos ever made, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace oozes style and blood.
The early set piece which sees the killer stalk a model through the underbelly of the fashion house employs bright reds and blues, and it's a hugely effective way to juxtapose the beautiful with the ugly (the inevitable murder).Yet Black Lace seems to be a work of style over substance, and while there is a bucket load of style, there's precious little substance.
However, BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is the one that started it all back in the early sixties.Any fan of murder mysteries should watch this film as the twists and turns are very good, enthralling even, and keep the viewer's mind working overtime to figure out who the killer actually is.
BLOOD AND BLACK LACE is really a great Italian thriller, made by one of the masters of horror, and should be seen by any self-respecting mystery, thriller or giallo fan..
A clear example of style over substance, Blood And Black Lace can only reasonably be recommended to Italian cinema completists and those interested in seeing the genesis of Bava's influence on some of the classic films that followed this one.
However, the killer isn't done, and the body-count is about to rise.Bava does an interesting thing with BLOOD AND BLACK LACE by revealing at little after the hour (and on the heels of another memorable murder that takes place in a bathtub where another model, played by Claude Dantes -- a dead ringer for Linda Evangelista -- gets herself a mouthful of water and a slash on the wrist).
A rogue gallery of suspicious characters set to Carlo Rustichelli's jazzy soundtrack becomes the opening sequence to the official giallo thriller from Mario Bava.A house of fashion becomes a house of murder when a faceless killer stalks and kills beautiful models.
BLOOD and BLACK LACE begins with the murder of a beautiful model named Isabella(Francesca Ungaro), who works for a well-known fashion agency and lives at an upscale boarding house run by a cool and calm Cameron Mitchell and his lover, the Contessa Christina(Eva Bartok).