'Le Foto Prohibite di una Signora Per Bene' (1970) - Luciano Ercoli.

The estimable talents of Italian filmmaker, Luciano Ercoli, soon to be lauded for his deliciously deadly, death-dealing duo of 'Death Walks in High Heels and 'Death Walks at Midnight' were first stylishly utilized in, Ercoli's striking, steamily melodramatic, sinisterly sado-erotic, tantalizingly insidious Giallo 'Le Foto Prohibite di una Signora Per Bene'. While palpably risque, there's a pleasing emotional depth to this handsomely hedonistic, exquisitely fashioned, darkly fascinating trawl into the roiling darkness of the human psyche, deftly written by ubiquitous thriller impresario, Ernesto Gastaldi, a deservedly revered name amongst Gialli fans, having authored many inspired macabre masterpieces; his outre thriller, 'Le Foto Prohibite di una Signora Per Bene' replete with his signature flourish of deliciously diabolical grandeur!

The breathlessly beautiful, Minou (Dagmar Lassander) has her rather pampered, vapid, sensually unfulfilled life with her largely absent husband, Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi) thrown into a disorientating emotional tumult after an evening beach side stroll is violently interrupted by the menacingly sexy, swarthily sinister figure of brutal blackmailer (Simon Andreu), cruelly forcing her to the ground, he then verbally and physically torments poor, defenceless Minou, thereby aggressively sowing the sadistic seeds of her mental destruction by taunting her ever further with the fearful, anxiety-inducing idea that hubby, Peter is a murderer, and thus begins a salacious series of sexually sordid scenarios, impeccably designed by writer, Gastaldi and stylish filmmaker, Ercoli to monstrously discombobulate, Minou to such a severe degree as to render her almost completely insensible!

Having a greater personal affinity for the more morally skewed, incrementally creepy, deliciously off-key psycho sexual Gialli, rather than the amusingly hyperbolic formula of, Agatha Christie spliced with bravura black-gloved grue variety, 'Le Foto Prohibite di una Signora Per Bene' is a whip-smart, sinfully sublime, sinisterly simmering shocker; enlivened by a pair of effervescent Euro-cult icons on especially rare and sultry form, namely the delectably delicious, Dagmar Lassander and the resplendently decadent Giallo princess, Nieves Navarro, both oozing charm, grace and a vivid eroticism! This is an intoxicating, visually sumptuous, erotically charged psychodrama along the same fevered lines of maestro, Umberto Lenzi's 'Paranoia' or 'Spasmo', an enormously enthralling adult thriller made ever more exceptional by the mellifluous, ear-wormingly beautiful theme by maestro, Ennio Morricone!