Directed by Sergio Pastore (also director of the wonderfully named 'Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine') 'The Crimes of the Black Cat' is a good giallo set in Copenhagen. A blind pianist sets out to find a murderer after he overhears a conversation in a restaurant. There are many familiar giallo elements but it puts them together in an entertaining way that holds ones' attention until the last frame. (A window frame in fact.) The explanation of the crimes at the end is too rushed but apart from that the pacing is fine. It looks good in 'Technicolour' and 'Techniscope'. Manuel De Sica provides a dramatic music score.Anthony Steffen is believable as the blind pianist and is supported well by the other members of the cast, some quite familiar from this genre. Giovanna Lenzi as the drug addled Susan Leclerc is particularly good. One feels her pain. There is a black cat of course and this one has creepy piercing eyes. After a short while I thought I'd definitely identified the killer but by the end it turned out I was wrong. But then good giallos do that.

A mysterious killer is murdering fashion models by using a black cat whose claws are dipped in curare. A composer, whose girlfriend was the first one to be killed, overhears a conversation by someone he believes may be the killer.But there's one complication--the composer is blind and couldn't see the suspected murderer.A rather scenic movie that has a slow exposition. That's the downfall.The murders are crazy and surreal.In the end, I cannot recommend. It's just too slow.

Fashion models are dying mysteriously by a heart attack after encountering a wicker basket containing a cat which leaps upon them. One of those victims, was the lover of a blind composer she duped for ambitions in the modeling world, yet he will seek her killer putting his own life to great risk.That blind composer, Peter Oliver(Anthony Steffen)wishes to find the murder of his ex-lover for whom he deeply cared for, despite her faults at bedding other men who could assist in her rise as a top model in the fashion world. In a restaurant bar, Peter overhears a conversation between the mysterious white-caped drug addict, Susan(Giovanna Lenzi), wearing a talisman(..with an eyeball in it's center)and another whose male voice is a whisper loudly giving instructions. This conversation, interrupted by a jukebox's rock music, is of major importance in the murders that will occur during the film's running time. Being blind, of course, has it's disadvantages(..perfect for exploiting in a giallo thriller-mystery where twists and turns pull the rug out from under the viewer who are, in a sense, blind as well)so Peter will need assistance from chauffeur/employee Burton(Umberto Raho)and his lover Paola's(Isabelle Marchall)roomie Margot(Shirley Corrigan)who works at the fashion studio. Françoise Ballais's(Sylvia Koscina) studio is preparing for an upcoming Autumn line in Hamburg, and her dashing "husband", Victor(Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), quite the ladies man bedding the models under her employ secretly, manages things during such a busy time of the year. The studio faces a crisis that throws their lives into a tailspin, Harry(Romano Malaspina)who has his own photography studio(..and was the slain Paolo's cousin)has incriminating pictures of Victor in bed with the victim. When someone stabs Harry in the throat with a knife, he becomes a leading suspect. Meanwhile other models who have incriminating evidence against Victor die in almost the same fashion as Paolo, a wicker basket yielding a cat results in their deaths by heart attack. The film follows Peter and company as they try to find the one(s)responsible for the murders as they compile.This has everything I desire in a giallo thriller. The convoluted story keeps piling on the twists. Susan, the lady with the white cape, is my favorite revealing mystery..she's given an interesting development, and is quite a tragic character, who is revealed layer by layer, for as she is given exposition we are lead closer to identifying the murderer. As I've come to expect, this giallo gives us another wild plot twist at the end after it seems like we've established who the killer is. The reveal off-sets the vicious knife slashing of a character we care for, brutally displayed showing the blade as it penetrates the flesh as she cries in agony and dispair with nowhere to escape. As usual we have our amateur sleuths, these civilian detectives who actually discover just as much, if not more, than Inspector Jansen(Renato De Carmine)and his police. While the DVD print of this film is of lesser quality(..it looks as if the film is directly lifted from the film stock without the usual "touching up" that many giallo thrillers have enjoyed in the past, getting the treatment with a lavish quality transfer, enhanced beautifully for the viewer), I think the film will be a lot of fun for giallo fans who expect certain things that "7 Shawls of Yellow Silk" will give them. There's nudity, some gratuitous camera glides down the naked backs of women taking showers, and stylish camera angles and uses of light & shadow. The expected red herring or two is here as well. Couple all this with a blind hero who must use his other senses(..including his intellect)to figure out specifics with the help of his friends, and you have quite the adventure.-Spoiler paragraph- I like the touch of how the models die. Wearing yellow shawls containing a liquid repellent that sends the wicker basket cat into a frenzy, whose claws contain poison once they scratch, is such a nifty little way of adding something new to the giallo instead of the typical knife stabbings(..although they are included as well). I am torn regarding the episode at the Glassworks where a certain individual, possibly the killer, leads our hero into a most certain doom making stupid decisions that give Peter time to remain alive as the police close in...why would this person not just kill him and get it over with? Yes, I will admit that this sequence is incredibly tense as Peter, blind as a bat, tries to thwart the other's plans of killing him, but still..

Fairly standard giallo about a string of murders with fashion models as victims. The one clue is snippets of a conversation overheard in a bar that seem to be tied to the murders. The only problem is that the man who overheard the conversation is blind. With the help of his butler and one of the models, he tries to assist the police in locating the murderer.If it weren't for two key moments in this movie, it would be a totally forgettable giallo. The first is the method used by the murderer to kill a couple of the models. I won't go into detail to ruin it, so I'll just say that it's one of the most ridiculous, far-fetched, outlandish things I've seen. Most of the movie's credibility is destroyed in these moments.The second key moment is the final murder. This one works as well or better than most I've seen in any movie. It's one of the most violent, grisly razor deaths you'll likely encounter. Think of it as the scene that Hitchcock didn't show you in that famous shower. Pastore gives it to you in all it's gory detail.Other than these two memorable moments, the rest of the film is average at best. Nothing else about the movie really stands out.