The Crimes of the Black Cat

Critical Perspective

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  The Crimes of the Black Cat shamelessly borrows from Dario Argento’s early works. The story of a blind amateur detective refers back to The Cat o’ Nine Tails (1971), as does the title itself, while the finale with its shocking freeze-frame image cannot help but remind one of Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971). The screenplay also gets ample mileage out of the old “half-remembered clue” that Argento was so fond of working into his gialli. There is even a tape recording with a screeching bird providing a clue as to the whereabouts of one of the suspect’s hideaway. The end result is none too fresh but compensates in unexpected ways. … The murder scenes are handled with little imagination, on the whole, but it has to be noted that the razor slashing at the end of the picture is one of the nastiest to be seen in a giallo of this vintage. The mean-spirited quality of the ending recalls another sloppy but oddly endearing entry, Riccardo Freda’s The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire (1971), though Pastore’s film is handled with greater professionalism on the whole.