Black Crown

Excellent Argentinian Saslavsky started his career in Spain with this adaption of a story by Cocteau. Set in Tangier but shot in Spain, the plot concerns a woman (Felix) who loses her memory after killing her husband who was about to divorce her because of her affair with Maurizio (Gassman). The dazed murderess befriended by a young engineer (Brazzi) but her lover catches up with her and forces her to reveal where her rich husband’s jewels were hidden. Since she put them in the coffin together with the corpse, the murder is discovered but Gassman becomes the main suspect. The plot is unraveled through numerous flashbacks and punctuated with dream sequences full of hallucinatory images of witches, clutching hands emerging from a grave, the black-clad widow being pursued by a dwarf in a brilliant white cemetery, and the symbolic black crown itself: the formation of ravens as they circle above a corpse. —cinematurkey.com