Blood and Lace

Just as Don Abbondio famously (and somewhat ironically) asked: “Carneades! Who was he?” in the classic Italian novel “The Betrothed“, here we might ask: “Philip S. Gilbert! Who was he?”.

It turns out that this mysterious director is even more of a cipher than the Greek philosopher ever was. Other than in relation to this film, Gilbert’s name is all but impossible to find, and he doesn’t even merit a Wikipedia page. The fact is that “Blood and Lace”, a rather obscure 1971 proto-slasher that predates Freddy and Jason, was the sole directing effort for the elusive “Phillip S. Gilbert”, and some have speculated that the name is simply a pseudonym used by another director whose identity has remained generally unknown. At any rate, here we have something of a “college thriller” (promiscuous teens being killed in an isolated setting, but with an orphanage standing in for a boarding school or college) that “borrows” ideas and situations left and right (e.g., 1969’s “The House That Screamed” by Narciso Ibáñez Serrador).

Even so, “Blood and Lace” still boasts a couple of oddities worthy of note: first, Gloria Grahame, legendary femme fatale of numerous noir classics, makes her return to the big screen after a five-year absence. (The seductive star won an Academy Award for her supporting actress role in the 1952 “The Bad and the Beautiful”, but her career began to wane in the late 1950s.) Grahame invested the final scraps of her career in horror, not unlike many of her diva contemporaries, such as Barbara Stanwyck in 1964’s “The Night Walker” and Veronica Lake in the pitiful “Flesh Feast” from 1970.

Second, one can’t help but shudder at the gratuitous cynicism that permeates this story, the creeping malevolence that manifests differently in each and every character (the sadistic matron, the horndog drunkard, the bitter Lolita, the corrupt social worker, etc.), and it all culminates in a mind-bogglingly obscene and incendiary finale. What with a preposterous “denouement” of the killer’s identity, a grossly indecent proposal from the social worker to the minor protagonist, and another plot twist with incestuous implications, pretty much every box on the menu of bad taste gets checked off.

The film has little tension and little visual charm, and its miniscule budget explains, among other things, the host of extremely modest special effects and makeup.

The puritanical Will Hays must have turned over in his grave when this film was released with a GP rating (precursor to today’s PG rating) from the MPA.