"The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" is a good entry into the Giallo genre, with a plot (concocted by Ernesto Gastaldi and Mahnahen Velasco) that's actually pretty easy to follow. It does have some twists along the way, but never gets overly convoluted. Director Luciano Ercoli takes full advantage of the Techniscope aspect ratio (2.35:1) to fill the screen with colour and detail. Some devotees of the Giallo may not find it to be completely satisfying as it really isn't all that sleazy, and it certainly isn't ever gory. Mostly, Ercoli uses the film as a means of showcasing the charms of his dynamic and luscious actresses, Dagmar Lassander and Nieves Navarro (Ms. Navarro would become Ms. Ercoli two years later).Lassander plays Minou, the bored wife of businessman Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi), who is accosted by a stranger (Simon Andreu) on a beach one night. It seems as if he intends to rape her (and indeed, this depraved man does have sex on the brain), but what he does is he warns Minou that her husband is a killer and is not to be trusted. Minou ends up caught in his blackmailing scheme, and when she tries later to convince people of what has been happening to her, there's no evidence to back up her claims.Lassander is a pleasure to look at, and delivers a sympathetic performance as well; Navarro is a saucy delight as her friend Dominique. Capponi is engaging as Peter, and Andreu does look like he is having a good time playing the creepy blackmailer. Osvaldo Genazzani as the police inspector and Salvador Huguet as Peters' associate George round out the principal cast. These performers and filmmakers do a creditable job of holding your attention and interested in how things will develop, although some viewers might predict where it's going on prior to its resolution.With outfits and music that strongly evoke this era (Ennio Morricone composes a nicely mellow score), this is worthy of viewing for lovers of the more exploitative side of Italian cinema.Seven out of 10.

This is a slightly unusual giallo. In fact, it is debatable whether it is actually a giallo at all, as there is no knife-wielding black-gloved assassin and there are no murders to speak of. Strictly speaking, this is a mystery movie with a giallo feel. The gialloesque elements come in the form of an eye-catching title, stylish camera-work, great interior decor, a Morricone score, a convoluted mystery, sleazy undertones and the usual quota of beautiful looking women and hideous looking men. In other words, its great fun. The cast is very small, including giallo regular Pier Paolo Capponi, but the undoubted stars of the show are the leading ladies. Both Dagmar Lassandar and Susan Scott look very alike, and this is no bad thing as they are both stunning. Susan Scott is particularly effective here, she has a great screen presence and truly shines in this film - it really is hard to take your eyes off her. The Morricone score is pretty varied, from dreamy lounge to cheesy Euro-pop. It isn't necessarily one of his better soundtracks but it certainly has kitsch value. There is also some incredibly un-PC dialogue and the plot itself is not exactly coming at us from a feminist angle! However, this is to be expected from a 70s giallo movie and its one of the reasons why we love them. They are time-capsules of a different era. I would recommend this film for giallo completists and lovers of obscure Italian movies. Its unusual and camp fun. But if you are expecting an Argentoesque violent thriller you may be best served looking elsewhere.

If you like Giallo films because they are all blood, nudity, style and senselessness this one will probably disappoint you. Not that a little more of any of those elements might make this better than it is. This is very well done and though the story doesn't actually involve murder as much as extortion it is consistently interesting and involving. The recent DVD from Blue Underground is a spotless near perfect way to see it since a big screen is probably too much to ask. Unfortunately.Screenwriter Gastaldi always comes up with interesting plots and this one holds together on the strength of the plotting for most of its run. The motivations of the wife at the start are a little fuzzy but this becomes clear later. It is too bad the casting of the two leads occasionally makes things confusing, in the dark they look too much alike. Both the lead women look great and act well and the dubbing into English isn't too bad. A solid low budget film (though you'd never know) well produced on all levels with stark/striking photography.

In one evening, a beautiful married woman, Minou, is attacked by a strange man who informs her husband, Peter, is a murderer. Although Minou can't and doesn't want to believe the apparently crazy story, her best friend, Dominique, meaningfully suggests that a man named Jean Dubois, who was found to be drowned, might be somehow murdered. So, even in the troublesome circumstance that people around her including the police Commissioner can't conform the stranger really exists, it is natural that an unpleasant idea that Peter killed Jean Dubois crosses Minou's mind... Ostensibly the story of this film is a little too old-fashioned to be that of a 1970 Giallo. But, in the last sequence, it takes an desirably satisfactory (if not new) turn which not only is manifestly influenced by Mario Bava's THE TELEPHONE (which is the first and most Giallish segment of his 1964 BLACK SABBATH) but also has rather an usual Giallish element of bisexuality which conforms the Freudian thesis that sadism and masochism must be assessed in the framework of the bisexual organisation. Speaking of the Freudian psychoanalysis, the two leading characters, namely, Minou as a masochist and the black-mailer as a sadist, are almost innocently conformable to the Freudian definitions of masochism and sadism, which are accountable for the different roles of the female and the male. Especially, Minou is a very typically Freudian woman who is, paradoxically enough, so dependent upon her husband that she can sleep with the black-mailer to protect her husband. In this sense, though Dagmar Lassander adequately plays Minou whose actions and reactions, spoken and unspoken utterances, tones of voice, facial expressions and gestures are Freudian and/or psychoanalytically explainable, this film per se isn't and can't be the one in which Lassander is at her best because her character lives in and only in the strangely self-limited world. (Incidentally, I think the 1970s' film in which Lassander is at much better is nothing but SO YOUNG, SO LOVELY, SO VICIOUS...in which she plays much more humanly ambivalent person named Irena. Unfortunately this 1975 film per se is a little to melodramatic to be an average Giallo.) And regarding the Ennio Morricone's music, though it per se doesn't seem to be particularly bad, its strangely independent cheerfulness is not adequate for the appropriately essential seriousness of the film at all. Indeed this music is an unnaturally added sense of the-reality-IN-the-film, and confuses and/or disturbs the-reality-OF-the-film. In conclusion, though I can say this film as a whole is an average Giallo, I have to say the director's similar Giallo film, DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS, which has more serious and twisted detectiveness, is better than this.