hwg1957-102-265704 Directed by Sergio Pastore (also director of the wonderfully named 'Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine') 'The Crimes of the Black Cat' is a good giallo set in Copenhagen. A blind pianist sets out to find a murderer after he overhears a conversation in a restaurant. There are many familiar giallo elements but it puts them together in an entertaining way that holds ones' attention until the last frame. (A window frame in fact.) The explanation of the crimes at the end is too rushed but apart from that the pacing is fine. It looks good in 'Technicolour' and 'Techniscope'. Manuel De Sica provides a dramatic music score.Anthony Steffen is believable as the blind pianist and is supported well by the other members of the cast, some quite familiar from this genre. Giovanna Lenzi as the drug addled Susan Leclerc is particularly good. One feels her pain. There is a black cat of course and this one has creepy piercing eyes. After a short while I thought I'd definitely identified the killer but by the end it turned out I was wrong. But then good giallos do that.

BA_Harrison After his ex-lover is murdered, the first in a series of slayings, blind pianist Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen) tries to piece together the clues to find out who is responsible.Killers in gialli often use a distinctive weapon: an open razor, an ice-pick, a saw, a toothbrush. OK, so I made that last one up, but it's no more silly than the weapon of choice in The Crimes of the Black Cat: a black cat with its claws dipped in curare. When the moggy gets a whiff of a liquid cat repellent, poured onto a yellow shawl, it lashes out at the wearer, the poison on its claws causing instant heart failure.Other than this ridiculous modus operandi, it's business as usual for Sergio Pastore's 1972 giallo, with a convoluted plot (that shamelessly borrows elements from its contemporaries), red herrings aplenty, a murderer in black gloves and hat, and a protagonist who, despite being as blind as a bat, proves far more adept at solving a mystery than the police.Although the film is pretty standard fare, gialli fans should still find much to enjoy, with random female nudity and, of course, some graphic violence: although the moggy murders don't allow for much gore (other than a couple of scratches), Pastore more than make up for this in the shocking finale with one of the most brutal killings that the genre has to offer, a bloody razor attack while the victim is taking a shower that includes one shot that rivals the nipple slicing in Fulci's The New York Ripper for sheer nastiness.I have to admit that the reveal of the killer's identity and motive left me a tad confused, but it's not the first time I've been nonplussed by a giallo and I'm sure it won't be the last. 6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for the sadistic shower death scene, the crazy killer cat and that hilarious freeze frame at the end.

Leofwine_draca Sergio Pastore's giallo outing is a skillful attempt at the genre, lacking originality but making up for this in technical proficiency, a solid mix of genre ingredients, and provoking some fine performances from the Italian cast. The typically complex plot involves blackmail schemes, a circus, a pet shop owner, drugs and an offbeat motive for the crimes which all makes sense in the crazy logic that the giallo film offers. Lots of naked female performers and some brutal murders contribute to the film's exploitation level, but it really succeeds in the story and characters which are above average and make things watchable.Particularly good is Anthony Steffen (a spaghetti western regular, then moving into giallo/crime flicks) as the blind composer, Peter Oliver, who investigates the crimes, investing his character with both intelligence and charisma to boot. Although obviously moulded on Karl Malden's character in Argento's THE CAT O'NINE TAILS, Peter Oliver is a great lead and shows off his skills in the cat-and-mouse games of the double finale in which he manages to outwit not one but two would-be murders and save his skin. Speaking of the end, it's heavily indebted to 23 PACES TO BAKER STREET, but still suspenseful.The supporting cast is uniformly good, in particularly Umberto Raho shining as the comedy relief butler/chauffeur who has some fine exchanges with Steffen. Then we have regular performer Giacomo Rossi-Stuart adding another shifty suspect character to his resume and the likes of Sylva Koscina, Renato De Carmine, and Shirley Corrigan literally filling out the parts of the female characters, who are more interesting and fleshed-out than the typical victimised women appearing in gialli films.The various set-pieces are handled with skill, including a death-by-train (also from the Argento movie) and an exceptionally nasty shower murder to boot. There's even a fashion house, which appears to be closely modelled on the one in Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE. Although there are a few moments of artistic excess (zooms and repeated shots in the early murders) which turn things laughable, the film mostly holds together well and is quite gripping in spots, and if not always gripping then always interesting. The black cat of the title is a mangy moggy trained to kill but is a rather underused motive; instead, jealous and twisted humans are the perpetrators of the sadistic crimes, as per usual.

capkronos I'll go ahead and sacrifice my "helpful" score by admitting that I'm not the biggest giallo fan. For every one film classified as such that's an enjoyably stylish thriller (the best seem to come from Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Sergio Martino), there are about three that are pedestrian, lifeless, sloth-paced, visually unexciting and completely and utterly devoid of any originality. I've honestly had a difficult time trying to stay awake while watching some of these films. So, not surprisingly, I tend to disagree with others about what are actually the better films in this genre. One can gouge from the lower-than-usual score on here that this isn't one of the more popular films of its type, but I actually thought it was more entertaining than the majority of others I've seen. Why? Because it's nutty, goes OTT a few times and the killer's modus operandi is every bit as ingenious as it is ridiculous! Don't get me wrong, this is painfully derivative of many other, better films (Bava's BLOOD AND BLACK LACE and Argento's CAT O' NINE TAILS instantly come to mind), but since the exact same thing can be said for about 95 percent of the films this one shares company with, that really didn't bother me a whole lot. And silly as this was at times, it also had some legitimately great moments that deserve mention.Blind pianist Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen) decides to play freelance Sherlock Holmes after his unfaithful model ex-girlfriend Paola Whitney (Isabelle Marchall) is killed under mysterious circumstances. A fashion house run by wealthy Françoise Ballais (Sylva Koscina) and her ex-con playboy husband Victor Morgan (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), soon becomes the centerpiece for the obligatory string of cover-up murders to follow the first crime. Since Peter can't see, he enlists the aid of his assistant (Umberto Raho) and a fashion house employee (Shirley Corrigan) to help uncover the killer. Throw in a caped, strung-out heroin addict ("Jeannette Len"/Giovanni Lenzi), a photographer, a police inspector, a temperamental black kitty cat with toxic paws and a pair of lesbian models and your list of suspects and victims is now complete. There's the expected backstabbing, blackmail and adultery to help provide a motive, plus some nudity and gore thrown in for good measure. The cast isn't too bad (Steffen and Lenzi both do good jobs) and there are some pretty solid scenes, especially one taking place at some outdoor recycling facility (I think that's what it was) full of broken glass. Also worth mentioning is an awesomely gory shower slashing that's one of the nastiest (and best) set pieces in the entire giallo oeuvre. On the down side, the ending feels very rushed and the score isn't quite up to par, but all in all, this was a decent enough effort.