Giallo #3: "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" (1970)

Sounding like a parodic mash-up of three shorter titles, this mouthful of a film deals less with the serial killer route of the common giallo (to be established and then perfected in short time by the likes of Dario Argento) and more with one of the genre's ever-present influences, Alfred Hitchcock.
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A libidinous, intoxicatingly sordid brew, "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion" combines its 'woman-in-peril' paranoia with the genre's trademark eroticism and sadomasochistic overtones, an amalgam that strikes as fearlessly exploitative and one of the more unique entries in this ongoing feature, if not the giallo canon as a whole. 
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Minou (the gorgeous Dagmar Lassander) is married to Peter (Pier Paolo Capponi), a suit-and-tie businessman whose motives are called into question when Minou is blackmailed by a stranger who claims he has evidence condemning Peter of murder. (The film also seems ignorantly misogynist when it essentially suggests that the only thing a woman can do to protect her husband is to sell her body.)
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Complicating matters is the fact that Minou's best friend, the voluptuous, voracious Dominique has pornographic photos in-bed with the blackmailer. What's to make of all this?
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It's all a deliciously sleazy game of sex, lies and murder and although we hardly wrap our heads around the mystery even upon the film's conclusion, it's all quite a bit of imitative, guilt-induced fun. In the pantheon of gloved, hooded and doll-faced killers, "The Forbidden Photos of the a Lady Above Suspcion" is a different kind of beast, an example of the kind of distasteful pleasures that the genre can sometimes supply. [B-]