Featured Blu-ray Review: The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion

March 11, 2019

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion: Collector’s Edition - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion is a relatively early Giallo film made by a director, Luciano Ercoli. Neither this film nor the director are among the best-known names in this genre. Does it deserve to be seen by more? Or is there a reason it doesn’t get the same level of recognition as other films in its genre?

The Movie

We first meet Minou as she’s deciding to stop smoking, and drinking, and taking medication. Or at least she shouldn’t do that all at once. We then hear her inner thoughts as she decides what to do with her inattentive husband, Peter. Her best friend, Dominique, has some ideas. That night, after walking on the beach, she is harassed by a man on a motorcycle. After a short scene of cat and mouse, he catches Minou, threatens her, and then claims her husband is a murderer before leaving.

After this harrowing event, Minou heads to a nearby bar and calls her husband to get her. She orders a drink to settle her nerves and eventually, four beers later, Peter shows up. Once at home, Minou describes what happened, but can’t bring herself to tell Peter about the accusations of murder. Peter is entirely dismissive of the event, calling it a prank.

Later, Minou is supposed to go to the disco with Peter, but he’s late. Dominique and her boyfriend show up and after some dancing, they play a game of chance. Minou loses a bunch of money and Dominique jokes about her not killing herself, like Dubois did. This spooks Minou, because Peter owed Dubois a lot of money. The accusations of that man just became a lot more plausible. When she looks into the death, it’s more mysterious than Dominique described it, as he died of the bends.

Minou later talks to Dominique, who also tells her not to worry about the attack. Dominique then takes Minou to show her something, naked photos. ... It is a Giallo film. She has even more risqué pictures, including one with the man that attacked Minou. This time she takes the photo to her husband’s work and gets the police called in. Sadly, the cops can’t do much with this little information, but the Commissioner tells her to call him if she ever sees him again. Before leaving her husband’s work, Minou watches a test of a new diving design, a test that takes place in a pressure chamber, one that could have been used to kill Dubois.

That night, the man calls Minou at home and plays a recording of her husband talking about Dubois’ murder. He wants money, or he will go to the police. However, when she goes to deliver the money, he wants something more.

As I said above, The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion is a relatively early Giallo film and it doesn’t have the amount of sex and / or violence that some of the later and more well-known entries in the genre have. Instead, it has a more Film Noir sense of mystery to it. Since I love Film Noir as a genre, I was really into this movie. There are many reasons to recommend this film, and at the top of this list is the cast. Dagmar Lassander is amazing as Minou and she’s able to generate a lot of pathos in a role elevating it above the normal clichés. Susan Scott’s performance as Dominique is a great counter-point to this, while Simon Andreu is a real menace as the unnamed blackmailer.

On the downside, if you’ve seen many films in this genre, or Film Noir for that matter, then there’s nothing in the film that will really surprise you. Furthermore, while fans of the film might say it has a deliberate pace, others might describe it as slow moving. Personally, I thought the acting was strong enough to overcome these small issues.

The Extras

There are plenty of extras on the Blu-ray, starting with an audio commentary with Kat Ellinger, who is an editor, critic, and author. Private Pictures is a 44-minute documentary that features interviews with Susan Scott and the late Luciano Ercoli, who directed the film. The Forbidden Soundtrack of the Big Three is a 47-minute long documentary about the scores of Ennio Morricone. The Forbidden Lady has Dagmar Lassander sitting down for a 44-minute Q&A session at a 2016 film festival. That’s well over two hours of featurettes, which is outstanding for a release like this.

The Verdict

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion is a Giallo movie with a Film Noir feel to it and if you are a fan of either of those genres, then it is worth checking out. The extras on the Collector’s Edition Blu-ray is more than enough to lift it to the purchase level, perhaps even enough to lift it to the Pick of the Week level.

C.S.Strowbridge

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