Edwige FenechYour Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key [DVD]

Director Sergio Martino certainly made his fair share of gialli (five in total, if I'm not mistaken) with the most memorable being Torso (which featured Bird With the Crystal Plumage's Suzy Kendall in a leading role). However, thanks to bluray, Martino's other gialli have finally become available to American audiences—and the long-forgotten Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key makes a serious run at the title of "best of all Martino's films".For those not familiar with the term "gialli", let's stop for a brief history lesson."Giallo" (the singular form) is Italian for yellow. The giallo films were generally a series of luridly titled thrillers made in Italy in the '60s and '70s. They took the giallo name from their inspiration, a series of thriller novels like The Screaming Mimi, which were popular in Italy and were always marked by a yellow cover. The giallo was essentially the forefather of the American slasher film, only instead of featuring a series of unkillable mass murderers, the giallo antagonist was always a person—usually one traumatized by an event involving sex, and that often occurred during childhood. The films are remembered for their outlandish titles, convoluted plots (thanks to the numbers of red herrings in the typical script, guessing the identity of the killer in a standard giallo film is more a case of luck than solid detective work on the part of the audience), and exotic murder set-pieces. Mario Bava and Dario Argento are the two most widely recognized practitioners of the form, but essentially every Italian filmmaker working during the '60s and '70s took a shot at the genre.Sergio Martino (who worked in every genre) may not be a household name to most film viewers, but he certainly was one of the better gialli filmmakers working during the form's heyday.Teaming up with prolific screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, Martino sets out to subvert the typical giallo form with Your Vice. Rather than draw inspiration from the thrillers that so often provided the basis for these movies, Martino and Gastaldi instead turned to the work of Edgar Allan Poe—specifically The Black Cat. Gastaldi, who'd written approximately 20 gialli by this point, was instructed to "push the envelope"—and he did, while still staying within the confines of the genre. The gialli have always been marked by a certain amount of "sleaze", but Gastaldi really takes the ball and runs with it this time out.The film focuses on Oliviero Rouvigny (Luigi Pistilli), a down-on-his luck writer living in an isolated villa with his wife Irina (Anita Strindberg). Oliviero is a brute—a sexist, an adulterer, a misogynist, and a drunk—complete with an unhealthy obsession with his dead mother. He makes Irina's life miserable at every turn.Things soon become interesting when the young woman that Oliviero is having an affair with turns up dead at the hands of a maniac with an oddly-curved knife. Irina immediately suspects her husband is the killer—something she becomes surer of when the maid turns up dead in the house (Oliviero wasn't above sleeping with the hired help, either). Things become even more interesting when Oliviero's niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) shows up unexpectedly. Floriana is an agent provocateur, bedding everyone in the cast and amplifying the tension of an already tenuous situation. When the killer's true identity is revealed, things only get worse as a climax of double-crosses not unlike Mario Bava's Bay of Blood ensues—leading up to a Poe-inspired ending that's far more satisfying than it probably should be.As with any good piece of cinema, there are a number of different factors working in unison that make Your Vice such a compelling experience.First off, the cast is uniformly excellent. Luigi Pistilli was generally a character actor, but acquits himself fantastically in the lead role. Oliviero is a slimeball throughout the film, but Pistilli brings him to life without crossing over into caricature of melodrama. Meanwhile, Anita Strindberg does a fine job as the long-suffering wife Irina. Strindberg's performance isn't as restrained as Pistilli's, but the character calls for a more over-the-top approach anyway.The real show-stealer though is the delectable Edwige Fenech. Fenech bobbed her hair for this role and took on a character different than her usual victim. Your Vice marks the first time she actively plays a "bad girl" onscreen and the results are excellent. That she has no qualms about doing fully nude softcore sex scenes is just icing on the proverbial cake. It's amazing that Fenech hasn't found a wider fanbase in the US. (Eli Roth had the good taste to cast her in Hostel 2.)Ernesto Gastaldi certainly took the advice to "push the envelope" to heart, and Your Vice is a better film because of it. While it eventually winds up in your standard giallo territory, the film does an excellent job of focusing on the characters as opposed to the grand guignol set-pieces. Oliviero is an inspired creation on the part of Gastaldi, particularly when one realizes that Gastaldi has made him the character the audience is most supposed to identify with. No one in the film is likeable—which makes being subtly forced into identifying with Oliviero all the more interesting.Finally, much of the film's success springs from the direction of Sergio Martino. Martino worked with a lot of the same crew on his various gialli and it shows in this one. While there's nothing overtly flashy about the direction of Your Vice (unlike the more recognizable films of Bava and Argento), it's readily apparent that Martino is a competent craftsman who knows how to get the most out of his cast, crew, and location. In the entire film there's only one sequence (a motorcycle race) that seems out of place.Ultimately, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is a fine giallo by any standard. Martino and Gastaldi have created not only a film with what might be the coolest name in giallo cinema history but one with an intriguing story to back it up. If you're new to the giallo scene or the cinema of Sergio Martino, this is a great starting point. If you're an old veteran who's been around a few crime scenes in your day, this is still an investigation worth undertaking.Great Arrow release: techs, specs and extras galore.

I stumbled upon this. So entertaining. The sets are great. The acting is typically over the top. The characters are very weird. The plot is unexpectedly good. And the ending! Easily one of the most fun of the genre.

Life has been difficult lately for Irina (Anita Strindberg). Her husband Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli) abuses and humiliates her at every opportunity; he's been accused of slashing to death a young woman he knew; their housekeeper has just been killed in a similar fashion; and now she thinks he's trying to kill her. Enter Oliviero's niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) and things begin to get even more interesting.This film is based on Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Black Cat" and so is different from other gialli that I've seen with it's dark, haunted, gothic atmosphere (with the requisite cellar, of course). It also marked a change in roles played by Edwige Fenech. Looking very sly and seductive with a short bob, this was the first time - as she notes in her interview on the disc - that she played something of a bad girl: she arrives with a notorious reputation ("Is it true that you're a two-bit tart?," Oliviero asks her, to which she replies, "Well, it could be two bits well spent"), she goes to bed with her uncle and she definitely has her eyes on the family jewels.Luigi Pistilli does a fine job as the threatening, frequently drunken Oliviero and Anita Strindberg really gives off a sense of nervous terror coming from being trapped in this hell of hers, complete with Oliviero's terrifyingly annoying black cat, Satan.The picture looks very nice with good colors in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, enhanced for widescreen sets and filling the screen. The original Italian audio track is provided along with an English dub and the subtitles are easy to read. Extras on the disc include interviews with Fenech, director Sergio Martino and writer Ernesto Gastaldi; and trailers for other Martino films. No Shame Films also includes a 12 page booklet with background on the film, placing it within the context of Italy's political situation at the times, plus bios and filmographies of Martino, Fenech and Stringberg. There are also some nice color still photos, though the photo on Fenech's bio page is that of another actress in the film!While I can't say that I enjoyed this Martino film quite as much as his earlier effort with Edwige Fenech, "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh" - it's a little slow at times and Edwige is absent from the first half hour - I'd still give it four stars in the giallo category for the performances, the stylish direction and the Poe-like sense of claustrophobia, terror and madness.(A note for the curious: the title of the film was taken from a threatening letter one character sends to another in "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh.")

This film has Edgar Allen Poe all over it. It's a dark, tense psychological gripper set largely in a decayed crumbling villa, and centred on the tempestuous relationship between Edwige Fenech and her drunken, sadistic, failed writer of a husband Luigi Pistilli. Unlike other Gialli films, there's not a lot of action to speak of. Most of the story takes place in the villa itself. What this film does have which many of it's conteporaries don't, is a really intense feeling of foreboding - tension - and the knowledge that some sort of madness is lurking round the next corner.Things take a turn for the worst for Luigi when one of his mistresses is brutally murdered with a sickle. Naturally he becomes the prime suspect. Luckily for him he has a petrified, submissive wife to provide him with an alibi. However when their maid is also killed in their villa, Luigi knows he needs to hid the body or take the wrap for two slayings he may or may not have committed.All seems fine once more until Luigi's niece, the beautiful Anita Strindberg decides to show up unexpectedly, and begins to manipulate the minds of both her Aunt and Uncle for her own personal gains.This is a brilliant film, perfect for curling up with during that next electrical lightening storm!!!

Sexy 1972 giallo meets Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat". I really enjoyed watching this, beautifully filmed, good cast, an easy to follow plot despite it's twists & turns, much better than director Sergio Martino's "Torso". Arrow have done the usual great job, with plenty of extras. I did watch the dubbed English version, some of the minor characters had awful accents, totally out of place for a film set in Italy, next time I will watch in Italian. Overall, very impressed.

This is an exciting Italian giallo movie from 1972. So it has plenty of gore and nudity in it. Good story and well worth an hour and a half of your time. The gorgeous Edwige Fenech is in this film, but all the cast are good. It’s 5 stars from me.

superb example of the Giallo (Italian thriller ) starring the FANTABULOUS Ms Edwige Fenech in a more "bad girl " roleUsing Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" as a framework to hang a story of incest and murder around, this as per usual TOP NOTCH release from Arrow has some good extra's - an overview of Fenech's career - a look at the 5 Gialli that Martino directed (NB -Spoilers !) and an appreciation by Hostel director Eli Roth.Highly recommended

Good giallo film. I found it slightly less enjoyable than the same director's The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, but that's just based on watching each film only once so far, so I may think differently in future.