Death Walks on High Heels (1971)

The Worst Film Ever

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

A man is stabbed on a train, leading the police to question Nicole (giallo queen Nieves Navarro) about diamonds that are missing. Her life turns upside down, as she begins to receive disguised phone calls asking about the diamonds and a blue-eyed masked man attacks her in her boudoir. She then remembers that her jealous lover Michel owns contact lenses in that color, so she runs away with an older eye surgeon to the coast of England. But Michel isn't far behind...The first of three giallo directed by Navarro's husband, Luciano Ercoli, this is what the genre should be: shocking, lurid, bloody and oh so fashionable. It also makes a deft turn from what we expect from the form into an actual mystery film.There's a plot twist here that honestly shocked me, so I won't spoil it. While the other two films in the Ercoli giallo trilogy - Death Walks at Midnight and The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion - are much better, this is still a quality film worthy of your time. Some critics decry them as Ercoli making movies just to feature his wife, but if you had a quality woman like Navarro in your life, I bet you'd do the same.

"La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" (Death walks on high heels) features another of the giallo goddesses: Susan Scott (aka Nieves Navarro).Like many giallos, this is a sensuous film. It's not fast paced as today's movies, where car chases, bombs exploding, bullets flying taking toll etc.. succeed each other non-stop.But "La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" is a thriller alright - right from the beginning we see a murder on a train. A black-hooded killer (dressed in black) kills a patch-eyed man. He searches the victims's cabin, but he doesn't find what he was looking for.There was a big robbery. A safe was cracked and valuable jewels were stolen. The man killed in his cabin was thought to be in possession of the jewels. Cut.Paris. Nicole Rochard (Susan Scott) is the daughter of the man that was killed in the train. She is a dancer and strip-teaser. Now the killer will go after her. He wants to know where are the jewels, but Nicole doesn't (?) know. She will flee to England (first to London and then to a small village on the English coast), but death is following her. Needless to say, killings will happen and the Scotland Yard will step in. I've tried not to give away much of the story so as not to spoil your fun.The Italian cinema had at the time very good technicians. The soundtrack, lighting effects, costumes and decor etc.., were taken care by masters of the craft. For many giallo films, even if they had average directors, the atmosphere and charm were created by the combined effort of the film crew. Just check out "La Dama Rossa uccide sette volte" to see what I'm meaning.Susan Scott (like other giallo goddesses) is a perfect damsel in distress. Whatever she does (no matter what, as another reviewer pointed out), is arousing, be it dancing, bulging her eyes in fear, painting her nails etc.. The other actors do a good job as well - Simon Andreu as Michel, Nicole's Parisian boyfriend soon to follow her to England; Frank Wolff, as the classy Dr. Robert Matthews, with whom Nicole elopes to England; Carlo Gentile and Fabrizio Moresco, as inspector Baxter and his faithful assistant Bergson; the beautiful Claude Lange, as Vanessa..., and last but not least, the actors playing the local villagers - the people of the pub; Luciano Rossi, as the sinister Hallory; the strange street fish seller; the wandering and curious Captain Lenny (George Rigaud)..... Scenery and actors work in perfect harmony."La Morte cammina con i tacchi alti" is an entertaining and sensual thriller, but if you only like non-stop "bang bang sock boom crash" , then avoid this film.

Luciano Ercoli's DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS is his second entry into the genre (the first being PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION). This movie may be one step up from DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT but the characters are still boring, the plot is weird and there are too many pointless characters introduced, perhaps in an attempt to confuse the viewer of who the real killer is. This one is about Nicole (Susan Scott) who is Stalked by a killer searching for diamonds that he thinks she knows about. There are some really bizarre sequences in this movie including one scene where Nicole (Susan Scott) and the Doctor (Frank Wolff) are eating fish together and it seems that Nicole (Susan Scott) rubbing fish all over her lips is getting them both hot and bothered? Not to mention the guy in the movie who wears women's cloths, the cow skin rug and I have never seen guys in a movie bitch slap each other so much... Susan Scott's character seems to be different in this movie then in DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT, she is a nude dancer in a club, is often spreading her legs while she is sitting, is dating more then one man, rubs her body on the floor while the windows are open and perverts watch, though don't get to excited as she is clothed in these scenes and you only see her (and her flat ass) naked once or twice. Once again this movie is more of a mystery with lots of guessing and talking and not much action. There are a few good scenes but the talking and questioning goes on and on it gets a bit boring. The only really good scene was 1 hour and 11 mins. into the film. The music is great, has a bit of nudity and one great killing. There are still some hints of comedy but much less then in DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT. Get the Noshame disc as you wont be disappointed with THE SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH music CD which comes along with the 2 movies DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS.

A jewel thief is brutally murdered on a train by a masked assailant. But when the murderer is unable to locate any diamonds, the murderer immediately suspects that the thief's daughter, a Parisian stripper named Nicole (Nieves Navarro aka Susan Scott), may have the diamonds. Nicole, however, claims to know nothing of the diamonds. After a series of threats, both verbal and physical, Nicole decides to flee France with a man she hardly knows. The pair begin a seemingly ideal relationship in a secluded seaside village. But Nicole is unaware that the killer has followed her to England and will stop at nothing to get his hands on the diamonds.What a fun Giallo! Death Walks on High Heels has one of the most convoluted plots I've run into – even by Giallo standards. While the movie may lack the quantity of murder scenes found in other Gialli (although at least one murder scene is as violent as they come), Death Walks on High Heels makes up for this shortcoming with more plot twists than a mountain road and boatload of red herrings. It had me guessing (incorrectly, I might add) up to the very end. It's all about the mystery and director Luciano Ercoli skillfully casts the shadow of suspicion on just about everyone in the cast. Much of the movie is told quite nicely in flashbacks with bits and pieces of the story being revealed as each person confesses to what they may or may not have seen. There's even a pair of bumbling Scotland Yard detectives who are (surprise, surprise) actually funny. Overall, Death Walks on High Heels is very well done.The acting is a notch or two above what I've come to expect in a Giallo. The highlight, at least for me, is Nieves Navarro. She is amazing as Nicole. I didn't think I would ever say this, but I think she might have been capable of challenging Edwige Fenech in my mind as the Queen of the Giallo had she made a few more of these movies. I'm looking forward to checking out more of her work.As much as I enjoyed Death Walks on High Heels, it's not without its flaws. Chief among them, at least to me, is a "cheat" with respect to one of the murders. I don't want to give anything away, but there is one particularly nasty murder that the killer could not have committed given the circumstances immediately following the murder. Hopefully, with repeat viewings, I can reconcile this point in my mind and just enjoy the movie for what it is.Finally, and I'm really starting to sound like a shill, NoShame's new DVD is fantastic. I would have never dreamed that a movie like Death Walks on High Heels would look this good. Bravo NoShame!