Blood & Black Lace
by Mario Bava
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Ariana Gorini, Cameron Mitchell, Dante DiPaolo, Eva Bartok, Thomas ReinerDirector: Mario Bava
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); English (Dubbed); French (Dubbed); Italian (Dubbed)
Format: Collector's Edition, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-08
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Vci Video
Movie Reviews of Blood & Black Lace
Movie Review: A more mature view, 43 years later
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time I saw "Blood and Black Lace," I was a 20-year-old GI getting ready to be shipped out to the Vietnam War. It fascinated me so much that I sat through viewing after viewing of it (movie houses would let you do that in those days without your having to buy another ticket). But my initial viewings as a very young man were to see the displays of female flesh (very tame by today's standards) that the movie offered.
Viewing the DVD now, from the perspective of my retirement years, I can see that there is far, far more to this trend-setting mystery than skin. Mario Bava produced a true whodunit with superb cinematography and set decoration and some fine acting. A number of things jump out at one: In a bevy of young models who are mostly blonde and fair, Claude Dantes is a statuesque, striking brunette whose watery demise hits one like a right cross; the Italian actor who plays one of the suspects is an absolute, dead ringer for Peter Lorre; and Mary Arden dies a horrible death by "taking the heat."
Bava's camera (he did most of the shooting himself) tracks and swoops through the salon, the eerie museum and down moonlit brick lanes with a unique energy of its own. The colors chosen by Bava for the sets tend to the brilliant primary -- the better to match, and contrast with, the blood which often flows in a number of scenes.
Who is the villain killing the models? Bava throws a number of red herrings across the trail before finally, deliberately, giving the game away as the climactic scene approaches.
An excellent "giallo" mystery that has become a cult classic. How little of its brilliance that young GI noticed, 43 years ago!
Summary of Blood & Black Lace
Though the original Italian title translates to "Six Women for an Assassin," the American title, Blood and Black Lace, is far more evocative of the psychosexual nature of this elegant slasher picture. The thin plot concerns a respected Italian fashion house, a murdered model, cocaine, and a tell-all diary that seems to implicate just about everyone connected with the house of style. The disappearance of the diary initiates a wholesale slaughter of the remaining models. Mario Bava's stylish exercise in mayhem lovingly delivers every elaborate killing with dreamy assurance. As the stalker, a faceless figure wrapped up in a trench coat, makes a move for his next gorgeous victim, Bava's prowling camera snakes through sets, rushes down hallways, and generally takes off like a low-budget Hitchcock flick on speed. By contrast, Bava runs through the police investigations with a perfunctory air--the lifeless scenes, which aren't helped by the flat English dubbing, feel like he's marking time between the murders--and when the identity of the black-clad killer is revealed it almost seems beside the point. As the narrative melts into a near abstract display of choreography and color (with an often troubling misogynist edge), exposition and psychological explanations seem oddly out of place in this elaborate dance of death. As a traditional thriller it lacks any genuine thrill, but as a piece of cinematic spectacle it has moments of dreamy, disconnected beauty. --Sean AxmakerAn unscrupulous business operating under the guise of a top fashion house with exotic models running sexual favors, cocaine dealings and blackmail, becomes a murder scene—after someone is pushed to the edge. The saga begins when a beautiful model is brutally murdered, and her boyfriend, a known addict supplying her drugs, is suspected of the crime…but is he guilty or is someone waiting in the shadows setting him up? Languages: English, French & Italian. Subtitles:English & Spanish. DVD extras: Motion menus, Photo Gallery, Biographies, Commentary by Tim Lucas (Editor of the Video Watchdog), Interview with Mary Dawne Arden, Interview with Cameron Mitchell by David Del Valle, Bonus Music Tracks by composer Carlo Rustichelli, Original Theatrical Trailer, Dolby Digital 5.1, DVD-9/DVD-5.
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