What's immediately noticeable to the viewer is that definitely isn't your run-of-the-mill giallo. For a start, the film has little nudity and there's nary a black-gloved killer to be seen. Perhaps most obvious of all is the singular lack of a body count; there are no brutal murders here, no sinister knifings, in fact the film feels quite wholesome. Instead this is a giallo that focuses around a mysterious blackmailer and has one of those "is she mad or isn't she?" plot evolutions in which the heroine is being secretly terrorised only to have nobody, including her husband, believing her.

Much of the film centres on Dagmar Lassander's character, a wife forced into sex with a stranger who then realises that she's been tricked. Unfortunately, Lassander is the weakest actor in the film, and she's pretty unconvincing in the emoting scenes. Far better is the sexy, sassy Susan Scott, who unfortunately is relegated to a minor supporting role as the female friend. Swap these two around and the film would have been far better.

Director Luciano Ercoli delivers the proceedings from a script by giallo veteran Ernesto Gastaldi; thankfully, the plotting is more convincing than most entries in the genre and the benefit of a decent English dub makes things easier to bear. What the film lacks in action it makes up for in style; this movie shows the height of (dated) fashion, with the women frequently donning blonde wigs and hanging around in local haunts. A swinging, annoyingly catchy score by Ennio Morricone adds to the experience. The rest of the cast is good, with Pier Paolo Capponi as the loving husband, veteran Osvaldo Genazzani as the detective and Simon Andreu as the suitably sleazy villain of the piece. Ladling on the mystery and suspense throughout while also investing proceedings with a typically sexual flavour, Ercoli's first film as a director is a low budget success.

I reckon I am sucker for detective stories and movies that have that whole mystery surrounding them. This is one of them and it has quite the good actors involved in it. While the dubbing or recording of voices in Italian movies of tha era might not sit well with some, it is how they operated back then. To get the best actors for the roles I reckon.

This is not what this movie is about or what I want to make a big point of. I won't even go into the evil mastermind behind this (you may or may not see the twist from afar). Just watch this slick and also slimy movie for what it is. A crime story that does what it say on the cover ... dirty and not easy to watch at times (especially when it comes to how our main character is treated) ...

The dull Minou (Dagmar Lassander) is spending a couple of days in her house nearby the beach. When she goes to a restaurant to have dinner, she is harassed by a stranger (Simon Andreu) riding a motorcycle that tells that her husband has killed a business investor. Minou calls her husband Pier (Pier Paolo Capponi) and they return home. Pier is a businessman near bankruptcy and former lover of Minou's best friend Dominique (Susan Scott). Soon Minou receives a phone call of the stranger that tells that he has a tape of Pier killing an investor. He proposes to trade the tape for kinky sex with her, and Minou accepts the proposal to protect Pier. But soon she learns that she was victim of a scheme and Pier did not kill the investor. Further, the stranger now has photos of their sex and blackmails her, and she confides everything to Dominique. What will they do?

"Le foto proibite di una signora per bene", a.k.a. "The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion", is a flawed and erotic thriller with a great plot point in the end. The actresses are extremely sexy and gorgeous, and the erotic tension is kept along the story. However, their characters are silly and shallow. The story has many flaws to misguide the viewer, but the final twist is unexpected. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Fotos Proibidas" ("Forbidden Photos")