Death Walks on High Heels [Blu-ray]

Director: Luciano Ercoli

Overview

Like his more famous La Morte Accarezza a Mezzanotte (1972), this delirious Italian-Spanish co-production from filmmaker Luciano Ercoli is a star vehicle for his wife, Nieves Navarro, who appeared in several giallo thrillers (among other genre roles) under the name Susan Scott. Navarro plays Nicole, a famous French stripper whose father is stabbed to death on a late-night train. The police question her about some missing diamonds, she begins receiving threatening phone calls, and the poor woman is even assaulted in her own bedroom by a masked maniac with frighteningly blue eyes. Nicole's personal life is hardly less complicated, as she runs off to the seashore with a British eye surgeon (Frank Wolff), causing her insanely jealous boyfriend (Simon Andreu) -- who happens to own a pair of blue contact lenses -- to follow in a murderous rage. The loopy Ernesto Gastaldi screenplay is loaded with some outrageously contrived set pieces, and bears more than a passing resemblance to another one of his scripts, Lo Strano Vizio Della Signora Wardh (1970), in its concluding intrigue. The similarity is notable precisely because that film starred Edwige Fenech, whom Navarro was doing her best to unseat as the queen of giallo heroines at the time, as the lady in distress. She does a fairly good job here, burdened as she is with a demented screenplay and her husband's often overreaching direction. The overall effect isn't likely to win much crossover viewership, particularly in light of an avalanche of the genre's more noteworthy examples on DVD in the early 2000s. Giallo devotees, however, are likely to enjoy the film for its very artifice, as well as a nice score by Stelvio Cipriani and a cast including genre regulars Jorge Rigaud, Jose Manuel Martin, and Luciano Rossi.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/21/2017
UPC:	0760137976080
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	NR
Source:	Arrow Video
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:48:00
Sales rank:	3,496

Special Features

Brand new 2k restoration from the original camera negative; High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation; Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio; Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack; Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack; Audio Commentary by film critic Tim Lucas; Introduction to the film by Screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi; From Spain with Love featurette comprising newly-archive footage of Director Luciano Ercoli and actress Nieves Navarro, interviewed at their home in Barcelona; Master of Giallo - Screenwriter Gastaldi on Death Walks on High Heels and how to writer a successful giallo; Death Walks to the Beat - a career-spanning interview with High Heels composer Stelvio Cipriani; Original Italian and English Trailers; Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Claudie Lange	Vanessa Matthews
Frank Wolff	Dr. Robert Matthews
Nieves Navarro	Nicole Rochard
Sim?n Andreu	Michel Aumont
Stelvio Cipriani	Composer
Susan Scott	Actor
Carlo Gentili	Inspector Baxter
George Rigaud	Captain Lenny
Fabrizio Moresco	Bergson
Osvaldo Genazzani	Jack

Technical Credits

Ernesto Gastaldi

May Velasco

Dino Verde

Ernesto Gastaldi	Screenwriter
Jose Frade	Producer,Producer
May Velasco	Screenwriter,Screenwriter,Screenwriter
Dino Verde	Screenwriter
Alberto Pugliese	Producer
Amedeo Casati	Sound Effects
Romano Pampaloni	Sound Effects

Editorial Reviews

La Morte Cammina con i Tacchi Alti delivers all the goods a giallo fan expects: there's lots of bare flesh, a masked killer, some brutal murder set pieces, plenty of outrageous plot twists, and red herrings galore. However, the film comes off a second-tier giallo for more than one reason. The first is Luciano Ercoli's direction; he lends the film a professional sense of style, but his work lacks the inspiration that would have distinguished it from the pack. Also, his pacing is too languid for this sort of film, and the film rarely builds the tension a good thriller requires. Ercoli gets good performances from a solid Euro-cult cast, including a smolderingly sexy turn from unsung starlet Nieves Navarro, but they're all confined to stock roles. More importantly, La Morte Cammina con i Tacchi Alti features a script that ultimately shortchanges the storyline's promise; there is a major plot twist at the midpoint that shocks the viewer but unfortunately also sends the film into less interesting narrative territory. The end result still delivers the kind of racy thrills expected from this fare, it just never hits the demented heights of which the genre is capable. Thus, La Morte Cammina con i Tacchi Alti is suitable fare for the experienced Eurotrash fan, but others should tread with caution.