The Rules of the Game

This chapter highlights Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (6 donne per l'assassino) that was advertised in Italy as an out-and-out whodunnit type of film. It argues why the film should not be considered as a whodunnit in accordance with the rules of the period, such as its lack of comic relief and the British setting. It also explains the Blood and Black Lace's lack of a proper through-line of detection, in which each victim and murder are the object of a separate section and a potentially self-contained mini-narrative. The chapter describes the very “thin” human factor in the film Blood and Black Lace's initial introduction of characters during the opening credits. It points out how Blood and Black Lace was a film about a crime story that lacked a strong detective figure.