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Friday, July 12, 2019

A BLACK VEIL FOR LISA (1968)

Workhorse Brit Sir John Mills isn’t a name you expect to encounter in Italian ‘giallo,’ those lurid, highly colored, violent, sex & gore thrillers. Yet, here he is, under cinematographer-turned-director Massimo Dallamano, as a top Interpol Narcotics Agent, trying to shut down a Hamburg-based drug organization before his latest informer gets bumped off. Is the hitman reading his mind, or is there a inside leak at the agency? It’s a fairly standard set up for a policier, but neatly handled in the early goings. With pace, local color and a few agogic shock cuts that put a sting in the violent action. Nice looking print, too, on Olive Films' DVD. But it soon falls apart when we see that Mills has gone love blind (thick-as-a-brick to keep the plot wheels turning) on his two-timing wife (hazel-eyed Luciana Paluzzi), cheating on him romantically and professionally. Soon enough, both at the same time with Robert Hoffmann’s thick-haired/thick-headed hitman. So a reasonably promising cop thriller dies from a bad case of narrative stupidity, saved here & there by bits of startling color. Check out that yellow phone booth. Better yet, don't bother.

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: The usual Italian post-production synch-sound is better than average with Mills doing his own vocals. And isn’t that Paul Frees (Rocky & Bullwinkle’s Boris Badenov) doing half the other voices?

WATCH THIS NOT THAT: Dallamano is better remembered as Sergio Leone’s cinematographer in those two founding Spaghetti Westerns, FISTFUL OF DOLLARS/’64 and FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE/’65.

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