GIALLO SUNDAY: The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh

After a two-month hiatus, Giallo Sunday returns with Sergio Martino’s 1971 giallo ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’, his first foray into the genre and his first teaming with Edwige Fenech. How is it awesome? Let me count the ways.

Firstly, its success kicked off a string of stone-cold classic gialli from Martino: ‘The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail’, ‘All the Colours of the Dark’, ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ (its title, one of the most magnificent in all of cinema, suggested directly by ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’) and ‘Torso’, two of which reunited him with Fenech.

Secondly, it features stellar turns from three giallo legends: Fenech, George Hilton and Ivan Rassimov. Rounded out by Cristina Airoldi (who has one of the most memorable scenes in ‘Torso’), Alberto de Mendoza (a character actor extraordinaire with an incredible eight-decade career in cinema), Carlo Alighiero (who played Dr Calabresi in Argento’s ‘Cat o’ Nine Tails’ the same year) and Bruno Corazzari (one of the “go to” guys for all-purpose villainy in Italian cinema), the cast is tip-top.

Thirdly, it marries stylish thrilleramics with a psychological imperative (the “let’s scare Edwige to death” syndrome: cf. ‘All the Colours of the Dark’) and delivers the whole thing in such a twist-heavy package (the last third of the film is pretty much one narrative curveball after another) that it’s deliriously difficult to keep your eye on the ball.

Fourthly, it delivers a generous helping of much-loved giallo tropes, including extended, operatic death scenes (a protracted bit of business in a park bears comparison with Argento’s ‘Four Flies on Grey Velvet’, made the same year), bottles of J&B all over the shop, a beleaguered but still gorgeous heroine, and black-gloved killers with sharp implements. Seriously, take a look at this little collection of screengrabs and tell me if they don’t scream giallo:

I could continue enumerating all the ways in which ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’ is one of the defining examples of its genre, but I’d probably end of with a repetitive article that segued into a several thousand word love letter to Edwige Fenech, so let’s get things back on track with a plot synopsis.

Julie Wardh (Fenech) has entered into a marriage of convenience with career-obsessed diplomat Neil (de Mendoza) – a man so stultifyingly dull that he dishonors the name Neil (plus, how dare someone who’s obsessed with work share the same name as me? I hate work) – in order to get away from her domineering and possessive ex, Jean (Rassimov). Jean, it is revealed in flashback, is the chap who happily pandered to Mrs Wardh’s eponymous weird kink. And the kink in question? “Blood both excites and repels her.” Hence Jean making love to Julie on a bed of broken glass. (Don’t try this home, kiddies!)

Returning from a trip abroad with Neil, Julie is unnerved by the ministrations of a psychopath targeting women in their neighborhood, and by the fact that Jean seems to be trying to inveigle his way back into her life – the two, she worries, might not be unrelated. Hanging out with BFF Carol (Airoldi), Julie meets Carol’s playboy cousin George (Hilton), whose attentions provide a welcome distraction from her worries. When a blackmailer observes her passionate interlude with George and threatens to spill the beans to Neil, Carol offers to deliver the pay-off in Julie’s place. Things go badly wrong and Julie’s life spirals into chaos and paranoia.

Any fuller synopsis than that would lead us into spoiler territory, so many great things about this film will have to go by the board, particularly anything relating to that aforementioned last third. I will give a nod, however, to the way Martino seems to wrap things up with a bit of expositional dialogue between two characters which leads to much (perverse) hilarity between them; Martino plays the scene as if he’s about to homage Clouzot’s raised-middle-finger-of-irony ending to ‘The Wages of Fear’ (I was even prepared to forgive him the plagiarism, it was done so gleefully), only to subvert expectations and deliver an equally delicious irony but effected by quite different means.

As with any labyrinthine plot, too much analysis can sometimes be fatal. The climactic revelations depend on alibis aplenty for more than one character, and the lacunae are pretty tenuous in places. Still, it’s no small measure of the film’s success that Martino is pulling unexpected moments out of the hat right till the end.

His direction is energetic. The camera prowls with POV-centric menace à la Argento. The set-pieces – including a cat-and-mouse scene in an underground car park, and a nervy exploration of an old dark house lit only by the guttering flame of a cigarette lighter – are confidently handled. ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’ was only his second non-documentary feature (after the spaghetti western ‘Arizona si scatenò... e li fece fuori tutti’), yet every frame demonstrates that with the giallo Martino had found his métier.

GIALLO SUNDAY: Torso

Although not as well-represented in gialli as black gloves, wickedly glinting knives, spiral staircases or bottles of J&B, the image of a broken or ritually dismembered doll is one of the most provocative images the genre has given us.

One pops up during the opening credits of Sergio Martino’s sleazy, brutal and red-herring ridden opus ‘Torso’. The doll is placed in a sexualized context. A whisper of chiffon is pulled from the curvaceous body of strikingly attractive blonde woman. She and another woman engage in a threesome (the gentleman who makes up the third party is unseen) as a Martino’s camera drifts out of the focus. Meanwhile, another camera clicks away. A doll sits between one of the women’s legs. Someone’s hand slides over the doll’s face. Their fingers put its eyes out.

So. Nudity, voyeurism (as well as a hint of blackmail, perhaps?) and fetishized imagery. All within the first two and half minutes. Señor Martino has your attention, yes? Just to make sure he retains it, the first murder comes less than ten minutes in, after our second bout of nudity as a couple make out in a Mini parked beneath an overpass. I suspect camera trickery was used, since the kind of languorous make-out session these two engage in is spatially impossible in a 1970s Mini unless you have both doors open and shove the gear lever in reverse.

Ahem. Moving swiftly on. They’re disturbed by a masked figure and the young gentleman makes the terminal mistake of giving chase. The young lady makes the equally inadvisable mistake of getting out of the car. The killer strikes. Once she’s dead, he really gets to work.

A note on the title. ‘Torso’ is pretty meaningless, notwithstanding the killer’s hacksaw technique in the latter stages of the proceedings. The original title is much more apposite: ‘I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale’. Which you don’t have to be a linguist to figure out means ‘the bodies showed signs of carnal violence’. And why? Because, as the killer puts it – and I’m giving nothing away here whatsoever – “they were all dolls, just stupid dolls made of flesh and blood”.

The overpass victim – Florence (Patrizia Adiutori) – was a classmate of Jane (Suzy Kendall) and Daniela (Tina Aumont), both of whom are studying art in Rome. Florence’s murder coincides with Daniela’s stalking by the spurned by persistent Stefano (Roberto Bisacco) and their friend Carol (Christina Airoldi) acting out of character. Then there’s a second murder. But fear not – Inspector Martino (Luciano De Ambrosis) is on the case and he’s tenaciously following up a lead.

Uh, actually, this being a giallo and coppers in gialli being as effectual as a bulletproof vest made out of rice paper, scratch that. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Daniela is. She’s seen something she thinks might be important and she’s initially convinced that it implicates Stefano. Jane uncovers evidence that she believes is to the contrary. Nonetheless, Daniela gets a whispered message warning her against talking to the police. Her nerves shredded, Daniela’s uncle (whose attentions towards her seem more voyeuristic than avuncular) suggests she repair to his villa in the country to rest and recuperate. A business trip prevents him from accompanying her, so Daniela invites Jane, along with Ursula (Carla Brait) and Katia (Angela Covello), who have their own motivations for sequestering themselves away in the back waters.

This turns out to be the biggest mistake since Florence decided to get out of the Mini and go looking for her boyfriend, rather than locking all the doors, firing up the ignition and getting the fuck out of Dodge.

The second half of the film follows the girls to the villa, where the rural idyll turns very sour very quickly. The local yokels take an unhealthy interest in them. Stalker-boy Stefano shows up. Jane sustains an injury that puts her at a disadvantage when the killer comes calling. The last half hour is a sustained cat-and-mouse sequence which sees Martino at his tension-ratcheting best.

And it’s because he handles the suspense and the shocks so well that ‘Torso’ emerges a damn fine giallo rather than the cheap sex ‘n’ violence exploitationer it was obviously conceived as. Sure, it oozes sleaze: the nudity is as copious as the slayings and Martino takes pains to render two of the victims in a state of undress at point of death, plus it deserves a special award for the most gratuitous J&B placement in the history of gialli …

… (just in case Ms Brait’s elegant form is too distracting, it’s the ashtray), but ‘Torso’ is worlds removed from the clumsy wank-fodder of ‘Strip Nude for Your Killer’ or the grim misogyny of ‘The New York Ripper’. It’s effectively paced, makes good use of the kind of subjective prowling camerawork normally associated with Argento, and it’s slew of red-herrings and misdirections keep you guessing right up to the buttock-clenching finale.

This was the fifth of five consecutive gialli Martino made between 1971 and 1973, following ‘The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh’, ‘The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail’, ‘All the Colours of the Dark’ and ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’. And that’s a hell of a good run by anyone’s standards.

WINTER OF DISCONTENT: Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key

Okay, let’s get the checklist out.

Magnificently ludicrous title? ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’. Check!

Genre stalwart in the director’s chair? Sergio Martino. Check!

Twisty turny plot? We’ll attempt a synopsis in a minute (minor spoilers will apply), but for now: Check!

Black gloved killer? Uh-huh, and with a penchant for using a scythe. Check!

J&B? Let’s put it this way: play the giallo drinking game (rules here) while watching ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ and you’re liable to be carted off to get your stomach pumped long before the viciously ironic denouement. Check!

Edwige Fenech? Present, correct and indulging in mucho plenty kit-offery. Check!

I stumbled across this movie on a video sharing site last night. Never released in the UK and with the Region 1 DVD out of print and changing hands for stupid amounts of money (anywhere between £50 - £70; ie. $80 - $110), I’d pretty much written off any chance of seeing it in the near future. Then, having cruised said site for ‘Black Mama, White Mama’ and a certain notorious Ruggero Deodato film, I decided to chance my luck and fed Edwige Fenech’s name into the search box. Like the Promised Land revealed to Moses, like the doors of perception cleansed to Aldous Huxley, like Hugh Hefner surveying the Playboy mansion and reflecting smugly that he ain’t doing bad for an old dude who wears his dressing gown all the time, I beheld the glory and majesty of … oh well, fuck it, let’s just call it a midweek Something For The Weekend and post these three shots:

Okay. Now before you rush out to splurge that £50 (or $80) you saved for a rainy day/found down the back of the couch/mugged a little old lady for [delete as applicable], let me just mention that there is a very slight downside to this movie. La Fenech doesn’t put in an appearance until almost the 40 minute mark. In a 97 minute flick, this presents something of a test of the patience. Particularly since we have to spend that first third in the company of the resolutely shitty Oliviero Ruvigny (Luigi Pistilli) and his brittle, much put-upon wife Irene (Anita Strindberg).

Oliviero is a once-successful writer whose books are now out of print and who uses his grumblings that “the novel is dead” as an excuse that he hasn’t been able to write worth a damn for years. When Hemingway decided he couldn’t write worth a damn any more, he chewed on the business end of a shotgun. Oliviero channels his failure differently: he hosts decadent parties for beatnik friends, obsesses borderline Oedipally over his dead mother, sexually harasses his maid and humiliates his wife. That’s on a good day. On a bad day, he beats her. Oh, and he runs around with other women, too. Like bookshop assistant and his former student Fausta (Daniela Giordano). When she meets a nasty fate (business end of a scythe) while waiting for him at a tryst, the police come calling. There’s no hard evidence and, of course, Irene takes his side during questioning. She’s too scared to do otherwise.

Then the maid buys the farm (same modus operandi) and Oliviero panics and hides the body. He insists that he didn’t kill her but daren’t risk the police discovering she was killed in his house. He demonstrates his innocence and deep-cleaned conscience by walling her up in the wine cellar. By now, Irene is fearing for her life and freaking out every time Oliviero’s cat, the charmingly named Satan, leaps out at her or gets nasty with its claws. (‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ is nominally based on Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’. As in: there’s a cat, it’s black and somebody gets walled up in a cellar. Oh, and the mechanics of the denouement follow Poe’s template as well.)

It’s not a happy household and these aren’t particularly likeable people. Mercifully, it’s at this point that Oliviero’s sexpot niece Floriana decides to pay them a visit and all kind of shenanigans ensue. Turns out that Floriana’s not exactly a nice person either, but what the hell, she’s played by a never more gorgeous Edwige Fenech and she’s often naked. I hate to sound shallow, oikish or hairy-palmed, but in the world of gialli this is the kind of thing that can make or break a film.

What follows is kind of like ‘Knife in the Water’ without the boat and with the pressure cooker atmosphere of sexual tension actually resolving itself. In short order, Floriana worms her way into Irene’s confidence via the simple expedient of worming her way into her bed (thank you, Sergio Martino, you are great and wonderful man); catches the eye of local delivery guy and motocross rider Dario (Riccardo Salvino) and gives him an altogether different form of ride (Christ, my usual cerebral standards of film writing are taking a nose-dive!); and finally gets Oliviero hot under the collar in a scene that’s as sexy as hell so long as you keep your eye on Fenech and don’t remind yourself that Pistilli (grey-haired and wearing a crap sweater) is actually onscreen as well.

Then there’s a surprising revelation about the murders and the film takes a different turn. Martino has fun playing with convention and pulling the rug. What starts out as a study of a dysfunctional and sado-masochistic relationship, with the odd sidestep into the more easily recognisable giallo territory of fetishistic death scenes, suddenly veers into the realms of the erotic thriller, while teasing the viewer with subplots about the black cat and Oliviero’s mother which weave in and out of the narrative seemingly at random, before a series of reveals paint the last 15 or 20 minutes in the darkest shade of black. As well as the brightest shade of red.

Even in a genre not renowned for happy endings, redemptive character arcs or a sunny depiction of human nature, ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ is singularly cynical and mean-spirited. You can’t empathize with or root for anyone. If Fenech wasn’t so throat-tighteningly beautiful, you’d lose interest in Floriana pretty quickly. More than one character gets their just desserts, but there’s no catharsis. ‘Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key’ is a damn good giallo – arguably one of the greats – but fuck me, it’s bleak.