You know you’re in for a doozy of a caper when you’ve got dead bodies piling up, a mysterious black cat wandering around (with all that revolves around the creature and its unlucky curses), a disappearing wicker basket (simply suspicious), and a seemingly occultist person wandering around whilst wearing a striking white cape. . . remember what George Costanza once said in the comedy Seinfeld – “I bet you he is mixed up in this. I don’t trust men in capes”. Without further ado, we look at co-writer/director Sergio Pastore’s Italian giallo The Crimes of the Black Cat (1972) – sometimes also known as Seven Shawls of Yellow Silk.
Clearly influenced by Dario Argento’s 1970 hit The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and part of the massive gialli boom that happened soon after, things start off in Copenhagen, Denmark (it was actually shot there) with a bang after several women at a fashion house (think Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace) turn up dead. . . all seemingly of natural causes. . . the only suspicion resting on a wicker basket that suddenly disappears soon after the first body is found in a changing room.
One of the ladies to sadly pass away is model Paola (Isabelle Marchall – Crazy Desires of a Murderer), who has just broken it off with wealthy blind pianist Peter Oliver (Anthony Steffen – Tropic of Cancer), a man who is always aided by his trusted butler Burton (Umberto Raho – also in Tropic of Cancer). Rather oddly, right before Peter gets the letter of the break-up and then learns of her death (this all happens while he’s actually waiting for Paola at a restaurant), he overhears snippets of an odd conversation coming from a woman (Giovanna Lenzi) with a funny smell. . . who, according to the bartender, was wearing a white cape.
Despite Inspector Jansen (Renato De Carmine) being on the case, many more attractive women from the fashion house (who all seem to have been gifted an identical shawl) and a connected photographer find themselves the victim of an elusive killer that consistently wears a fedora, black gloves, and without anyone knowing, always has a black cat with them along for the ride. So, Peter, his butler, and another model from the agency, Margot Thornhill (Shirley Corrigan), decide to team up to try to get to the bottom of this perplexing case.
Always seemingly one step behind the murderer – perhaps the blind leading the way might be an issue, there are plenty of possible culprits (with the Inspector even including them on the list). Outside of the lady in the occultist white cape and a hit and run driver in a yellow vehicle, there is also Victor Morgan (Giacomo Rossi Stuart) – who might have been having an affair with one of the models (with perhaps some good old fashioned blackmailing to follow), as well as his wife Françoise Ballais (Sylva Koscina), the other owner of the fashion house. . . or might the fedora wearer be someone else completely? Could that pesky cat have something to do with the murders as well? Might that missing wicker basket simply be a distraction? Or, is it shawl possible that it’s those similar pieces of neck wear that each of the victims is wearing? Lastly, like in a good game of Clue, should we be guessing if the butler did it in the library with the candlestick?
A whodunit filled with many wild settings that feature numerous bloody deaths, The Crimes of the Black Cat might be a bit messy in its story telling, but it certainly infuses enough magic from Edgar Allan Poe, as well as contemporaries Argento and Bava, to make for a fun mystery/thriller. Heightening the stakes with its blind protagonist, the not-always-there butler, as well as their fragile and overly protected female compatriot, as a viewer, it makes you feel like you’re actually wandering through the narrative with the same walking stick as Peter. So, claw your way through the dark Italian streets of this hidden gem, it’s a real basket case.
This film can be watched in Italian with English subtitles, or in dubbed English