User Reviews

Surprisingly awesome giallo! While the plot is nothing to write home about, this is still genuinely suspenseful and well-directed (albeit with some annoying editing choices during some of the murder sequences). In fact, there were some nice Hitchcockian touches throughout, such as a scene at the beginning where some annoyingly loud music prevents the protagonist (and the viewer) from hearing an incriminating argument between two mysterious figures. While most of the murders aren't exactly show stopping, there's one near the end of the film that will definitely stick in my memory. There was one shot in it that was surprisingly squirm inducing for an otherwise (mostly) bloodless movie.

And I don't know why, but apparently all of the women in this film like to shower with the curtain and bathroom door open.

Fashion models are dying mysteriously by a heart attack after encountering a wicker basket containing a cat which leaps upon them. One of those victims, was the lover of a blind composer she duped for ambitions in the modeling world, yet he will seek her killer putting his own life to great risk.

That blind composer, Peter Oliver(Anthony Steffen)wishes to find the murder of his ex-lover for whom he deeply cared for, despite her faults at bedding other men who could assist in her rise as a top model in the fashion world. In a restaurant bar, Peter overhears a conversation between the mysterious white-caped drug addict, Susan(Giovanna Lenzi), wearing a talisman(..with an eyeball in it's center)and another whose male voice is a whisper loudly giving instructions. This conversation, interrupted by a jukebox's rock music, is of major importance in the murders that will occur during the film's running time. Being blind, of course, has it's disadvantages(..perfect for exploiting in a giallo thriller-mystery where twists and turns pull the rug out from under the viewer who are, in a sense, blind as well)so Peter will need assistance from chauffeur/employee Burton(Umberto Raho)and his lover Paola's(Isabelle Marchall)roomie Margot(Shirley Corrigan)who works at the fashion studio. Françoise Ballais's(Sylvia Koscina) studio is preparing for an upcoming Autumn line in Hamburg, and her dashing "husband", Victor(Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), quite the ladies man bedding the models under her employ secretly, manages things during such a busy time of the year. The studio faces a crisis that throws their lives into a tailspin, Harry(Romano Malaspina)who has his own photography studio(..and was the slain Paolo's cousin)has incriminating pictures of Victor in bed with the victim. When someone stabs Harry in the throat with a knife, he becomes a leading suspect. Meanwhile other models who have incriminating evidence against Victor die in almost the same fashion as Paolo, a wicker basket yielding a cat results in their deaths by heart attack. The film follows Peter and company as they try to find the one(s)responsible for the murders as they compile.

This has everything I desire in a giallo thriller. The convoluted story keeps piling on the twists. Susan, the lady with the white cape, is my favorite revealing mystery..she's given an interesting development, and is quite a tragic character, who is revealed layer by layer, for as she is given exposition we are lead closer to identifying the murderer. As I've come to expect, this giallo gives us another wild plot twist at the end after it seems like we've established who the killer is. The reveal off-sets the vicious knife slashing of a character we care for, brutally displayed showing the blade as it penetrates the flesh as she cries in agony and dispair with nowhere to escape. As usual we have our amateur sleuths, these civilian detectives who actually discover just as much, if not more, than Inspector Jansen(Renato De Carmine)and his police. While the DVD print of this film is of lesser quality(..it looks as if the film is directly lifted from the film stock without the usual "touching up" that many giallo thrillers have enjoyed in the past, getting the treatment with a lavish quality transfer, enhanced beautifully for the viewer), I think the film will be a lot of fun for giallo fans who expect certain things that "7 Shawls of Yellow Silk" will give them. There's nudity, some gratuitous camera glides down the naked backs of women taking showers, and stylish camera angles and uses of light & shadow. The expected red herring or two is here as well. Couple all this with a blind hero who must use his other senses(..including his intellect)to figure out specifics with the help of his friends, and you have quite the adventure.

-Spoiler paragraph- I like the touch of how the models die. Wearing yellow shawls containing a liquid repellent that sends the wicker basket cat into a frenzy, whose claws contain poison once they scratch, is such a nifty little way of adding something new to the giallo instead of the typical knife stabbings(..although they are included as well). I am torn regarding the episode at the Glassworks where a certain individual, possibly the killer, leads our hero into a most certain doom making stupid decisions that give Peter time to remain alive as the police close in...why would this person not just kill him and get it over with? Yes, I will admit that this sequence is incredibly tense as Peter, blind as a bat, tries to thwart the other's plans of killing him, but still..

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.

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.

Italy and Denmark unite for a film made in the wake of Dario Argento's landmark The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Just look -- there are crimes right in the title and some vaguely associated animal name! Actually, a black cat does kill some people in this, so the name makes sense.

Originally titled Sette Scialli di Seta Gialla (Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk), this movie was written and directed by Sergio Pastore.

Several fashion models are killed by a murderer -- think Blood and Black Lace -- by a black cat that has been alerted to them by gifted shawls laced with chemicals. Such a strange way to kill someone, but hey -- we're in the psychosexual world of the giallo, so why worry?

Paola, the first victim, had been dating Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen, who was Django in Django the Bastard and also shows up in Play Motel and The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave), a blind composer who believes that he's heard the killer. He and his butler (Umberto Raho, Enter the Devil) are on the case, tracking the cat down to its owner, who is killed before she can reveal who has been taking care of her cat.

Much like the aforementioned -- and superior -- Bava film, Francoise (Sylva Koscina, Steve Reeves love interest in Hercules and Hercules Unchained; she's also in Bava's Lisa and the Devil) was killing the models to cover up another killing. That's because Paola was sleeping with her husband and certainly had to pay.

So yeah. The movie is a Bava retread with a lead character taken from another giallo, Bava's The Cat O'Nine Tails. And the killer's method comes from Bela Lugosi and The Devil Bat. It's still fun -- the fashions are inordinately loud, the zooms are wild and the music is out of control. There's a vicious shower kill than leaves nothing to the imagination. And it's still better than anything out there today and let's face it -- 90% of all giallo pales in comparison to masters of the form Bava and Argento.

I have also significantly reduced the amount of money I spend on movie tickets. Now I only see films I think will be good (like Drive) and have shifted to purchasing blu-rays. This has spoiled me into expecting great picture and sound quality which is infrequent in multiplexes. I don't want to be too out of touch, so I will rent some quotidian movies, probably on Saturday, while I invest in better films. Here is an obscure gialli The Crimes of the Black Cat.

Sergio Pastore's only giallo is a fun exercise for genre adherents. Play a game of identifying steals from better directors' better movies. Even for a genre film, Crimes of the Black Cat presents very little to justify its existence. A bunch of fashion models start to be killed off by an unknown assailant a la Blood and Black Lace. A blind hero tries to determine who the killer might be, and the only his lack of glasses differentiate him from his counterpart in The Cat o'Nine Tails. The plagiarism doesn't stop! There is even a shot of someone moving through a room of mannequins that is filmed from the same above canted angle as in Hatchet for the Honeymoon. Pastore was either an opportunist, hired help, or a hack with this film, mistaking his idols' manipulations of mise-en- as reasons for their successes. Bava and Argento arbitrarily added these characteristics to their movies, either out of intrigue into their underlying phenomena or artistry.

Pastore has does have some imagination, and his derivative movie may have actually been an inspiration for Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat which uses features more feline murder. This killer surprises his victims with his tabby who poisons them with curare claws. It reads better than it watches. Every time this happens the victim gets a quick scratch and dies. Admittedly, it's hard to imagine a cat killing someone, and Argento and Fulci got around this by evading worldly logic. They also threw in some nudity and a lot more gore that are strangely absent here. I haven't determined if this was a made-for-TV film or edited for its DVD release. If neither is true, the film doesn't subvert or otherwise justify its sophomoric conservatism. This is exacerbated in retrospect by his odd decision to typecast Annabella Incontrera as the aggressive lesbian she frequently played without showing using her implied love scene as a justification for some nudity.

Crimes is an investigative melodrama for the majority of its runtime. Once the killer's identity is revealed, we get an "apology" of sorts in form of an amusing riff on Psycho. The killer attacks a woman in the shower and slices her in plain view. I remain confused as to why we must endure 85 minutes to see this, but I was in need of relief by this point. The razor cuts her breasts graphically in close-up, ironically imprinting the film unjustly into our memory. It ends in a final nod to Four Flies on Grey Velvet with a freeze frame as the credits roll. The last attack is the only inspired part of the movie, and I encourage you to skip to that part if you rent it.

If you live in the United States, Crimes of the Black Cat can only be seen on DVD in a shoddy VHS transfer by the now-defunct DAGORED company. It looks as if they used an Italian tape as the master source as tracking is visible and the subtitles appear superimposed below the image and there are no other language options.

Not very original. But intelligent. Decent story for a giallo. Good Production – Cinematography, Acting, Music, etc.

One of the best parts is when the cop visits the blind piano player and says "I hope you can set a light on it" – It's dialogue like this that adds to the intelligence of the story. It furthers the film.

A few questions: 1) Who were the 3 people that helped the car victim? 2) What happened to the butler toward the end of the movie? 3) Why did the blind guy follow the husband to the abandoned factory? The shower scene at the end was a shocker. The victim was very helpful to the piano player and she doesn't survive.

The ending reveal was just OK. Most reviewers state that this movie copies form other movies. This is true. I don't mind that too much.

Professional production. Very good local scenes from the period. Main actor was very good, and the supporting actors were all decent. Cinematography was good. I didn't like the editing for the kills.

Nothing very special here. But still the rating is a C, or 5 stars.

I would rather see this film than the garbage made by Argento. I hate Suspiria, the most overrated, amateur pile of garbage ever released. Incredibly poor writing, acting, dialogue, scenes, God awful cartoon lighting, cinematography, disgusting, incomprehensible plot (cult witches in a German ballet school?!). Watch the scene again when the blind guy gets torn apart by his dog. Fake Dog! Watch the scene when the professor/expert reveals the witches to the main character. Suspiria is truly garbage movie. I tried to watch again and take notes on every scene, so I can write a true tear down of this trash. I only made it about 15 minutes. I recently watched Four Flies, another amateur, trash, garbage acting, and story. Plumage – trash. I just cannot understand the people who enjoy or elevate this trash to royalty. Argento is crap. Bava – maybe a bit better, but still garbage. The only reason to watch 5 Dolls for an August Moon is to see Edwige Fenech. I saw Blood and Black Lace last year. This was an OK movie. But I didn't think it was great. Here's another pile of garbage boring nonsense movie that somehow has a cult following: What Have You Done to Solange? So, the facts are opinions are like a..h…., everybody's got one. My opinion is if you venture to produce art, I require a professional product. The Crimes of the Black Cat is not the most original movie, but it is entertaining and it is professionally done. Argento and Bava – NOT. People who love these clowns dismiss and make excuses for their incompetence. Lack of story, bottom of the barrel acting, crappy editing. They dismiss all this and say, yeah but look at the scenes and the inventive kills and scenery. So, if you bought into the Argento and Bava superiority, you know who you are, then congratulations!

The Crimes of the Black Cat is a 1972 Italian giallo film, directed by Sergio Pastore and starring Anthony Steffen and Sylva Koscina.

It revolves around a killer who uses a black cat to to his (or her, no spoilers here!) bidding, giving each victim a yellow shawl containing chemicals that attract the cat. The first victim was involved with Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen), a blind pianist. He starts to investigate the murders and discovers more to it then meets the eye...

Overall, the film is very dull and lacks excitement. The few action sequences are poorly staged, most notably a scene where Peter is kidnapped and left to fall to his death. The cinematography by Guglielmo Mancori is excellent but is only highlighted in a few minutes of the film. The film overuses a replay effect that takes place when the cat attacks, which could be the editor's fault. The music is fine but not exceptional by any means.

The killer's identity is admittedly surprising but the backstory is ridiculous, never even once giving us a clue beforehand. Similarly is the way the killer dispatches of the victims, which is ridiculously complex but admittedly original.

Anthony Steffen is given a character that could have been interesting and complex had thought been put into it, but similarly to The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, Steffen fails to add depth to his character. The acting overall is forgettable, with the exception of Giovanna Lenzi (credited as Jeanette Len in the actual film), who perfectly conveys her character.

The murders are very tame, with the exception of a nasty shower death that adds some excitement to the film, even if the effects are not the best. The film overuses a replay effect that takes place when the cat attacks.

Overall, the film is very dull. Perhaps if more action sequences were added it wouldn't be as bad. A giallo lover might want to get a copy, but if you're new to the giallo, you might want to skip this one.

Using a black cat as an instrument of death, for example, that's quite original, at least in the particular way it's done here. The film is hurt by indifferent English dubbing, but the climax is absurd enough to satisfy genre fans; there is also one of the nastiest, most vicious murder scenes in memory. With its blind protagonist and "Cat" in the English title, the closest comparison one could make is perhaps with Dario Argento's "Cat O' Nine Tails" from the previous year, but Sergio Pastore is not in Argento's league. ** out of 4.