With Italian giallo films seemingly more popular than ever, NoShame Films have been at the forefront of presenting us with some classy DVD releases from the highly stylized genre made famous by the likes of Mario Bava and Dario Argento. This latest package ("The Luciano Ercoli Death Box Set") presents a double disc set of two features from Luciano Ercoli (FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION, coming to DVD soon from Blue Underground), which includes a third disc: a CD of film music from Stelvio Cipriani.

DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (1971) and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (1972) were Italian/Spanish co-productions that Ercoli made using most of the same main cast and personnel. In DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS, Susan Scott plays a very sexy erotic nightclub dancer who sports an assortment of wigs and body paint in her act. In conjunction with the murder of her father (an apparent diamond thief), she is stalked by a killer in a ski mask with bright blue eyes. Suspicion falls on her live-in boyfriend (Simon Andreu) when blue contact lenses are found in their medicine cabinet. Desperate to leave town, she turns to infatuated nightclub patron Dr. Robert Matthews (Frank Wolff), a wealthy British surgeon who takes her to his home in the English countryside. But she doesn’t elude her pursuer so easily, and the seaside setting has more than its fair share of eccentric suspects as a number of murders ensue.

From a story by Sergio Corbucci, the following year’s DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT has fashion model Valentina (Susan Scott) agreeing to be injected with an experimental drug for her tabloid journalist boyfriend (Simon Andreu), as she is promised her identification will remain a secret when an article is published. After drug is given to her, Valentina witnesses the brutal murder of a young woman by a peculiar man wearing a spiked metal glove. Later on, Valentina’s photo and details of the ordeal are published as a full-blown cover story, much to her rage, and it turns out that the whole thing was a set up. A subsequent job offer turns out to be another set up, as Valentina encounters the murderer from her vision now stalking her with the same metal glove. She escapes but when she identifies the man for the police, they tell her that he committed suicide, causing more bewilderment as to who the real killer is, and what she really saw in her vision.

Both DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT were obviously made as vehicles for starlet Susan Scott, wife of director Ercoli. The Spanish born actress was (whose given name is Nieves Navarro) displays an undeniable sex appeal of bedroom eyes and a body that won’t quit, sort of like a very mature Lindsay Lohan if you will. In MIDNIGHT she portrays a balsy women trying to identify a killer while dodging him at the same time, and in HIGH HEELS she’s an independent yet opportunist siren whose character takes an odd turn halfway through the picture. Both films are flawed (especially MIDNIGHT with a very sluggish middle) yet engaging enough if you allow yourself to get wrapped up in them. The films has colorful characters, wacky plot devices and lots of unexpected twists, and Ercoli does have a grand sense of unique style for these kinds of films, with some shots looking like they were storyboarded directly from a graphic novel. Both films can be very violent when they want to be, and although MIDNIGHT doesn’t have a shred of nudity, HIGH HEELS has Scott showing off an ample amount of skin, and she looks damn good! The supporting cast for both are filled with actors familiar from both Spanish and Italian genre films including Peter Martell (THE BLOODY JUDGE), Simon Andreu (THE BLOOD SPATTERED BRIDE), Luciano Rossi (CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD), Georges Rigaud (HORROR EXPRESS) and José Manuel Martín (COUNT DRACULA’S GREAT LOVE). HIGH HEELS’ lead Frank Wolff was an American born actor who started off with Roger Corman in the late 1950s and then flew to Italy for a prosperous career in mostly spaghetti westerns. Sadly, Wolff committed suicide shortly after this film was shot.

NoShame’s transfers for both DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS and DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT look terrific. Each film is presented in its original 2.35:1 Scope aspect ratios (with anamorphic enhancement) and look spectacular in every way, as if they were filmed yesterday. Each film has English and Italian language mono audio options which both sound fine (both films were post-synced, though it appears that most of the actors are voicing their dialogue in English). Optional English subtitles are included.

Extras on the HIGH HEELS disc include a brief still gallery, as well as an original trailer in both English and Italian. The MIDNIGHT disc includes a brief still gallery as well as the entire feature film in its TV incarnation, which has its titles letterboxed at 1.85:1 with the rest of the film full screen. Running 105 minutes, it’s padded with more talk not in the theatrical version, and apparently added here as a novelty. The third disc in the set is an excellent CD called “The Sound of Love & Death” and features various soundtrack music from Stelvio Cipriani, composer for HIGH HEELS. Although the CD features no music from the films on this set, it contains 18 tracks from 18 other Italian films he composed. There is also a hefty booklet featuring an essay about the film by Chris D., who also scribes informative bios on director Ercoli and actors Scott, Wolff and Rossi. Also inside the disc’s packaging, you’ll find two color post cards illustrated with Italian lobby cards from MIDNIGHT. (George R. Reis)

BACK TO REVIEWS

HOME