Thank you

Thank you Mario Bava for the murders taking place in a model agency (Blood & Black Lace),
Thank you Massimo Dallamano for the revenge linked to an abortion (What have you done to Solange?),
And for the killer dressed up in a motorcycle gear (What have they done to your daughters?),
Thank you Sergio Martino for the ear rings seen on a newspaper picture (like the scorpion cufflinks appearing in a newspaper in The Case of the Scorpion Tail),
Thank you Giuliano Carnimeo for the tacky photoshoots (Case of the Bloody Iris),
Thank you Ernesto Gastaldi for the lesbianism to spice up the plot (Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key),
Thank you Lucio Fulci for the body mutilations,
And of course thank you Edwige Fenech for on demand undressing.

Steal as much as you can from other gialli, and make it even hotter by mixing it with the sexy comedy "filone": you'll get Strip Nude for your Killer (Andrea Bianchi - 1975), which title is as subtle as the film itself.

3+1=5

At first, it seems obvious a trio is the core cast of Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key (Sergio Martino, 1972): The writer (L. Pistilli), his wife (A. Strindberg) and their young cousin (E. Fenech).

But it's wrong. In fact there are four key characters, if you include the cat. Because the black cat, called "Satan" - that says it all -, is everywhere in the film.
Regular close-ups on his eyes (and later on his unique eye left) are somehow giving a rhythm to the film, almost like an editing device. These sinister snapshots of feline yellow eyes staring in a flash at the viewer efficiently convey a feeling of anxiety and give the strange impression that indeed, the one character which is the puppet master is nobody else but the cat himself -
it must be stressed this is an interesting cinematographic transposition of the black cat's role in Edgar Allan Poe's short novel the film was inspired by.

Now, what if there were five key characters?
What if the cat was double?
Indeed there is one last character we never talked about: the Mother. The mother whose face is the first we see when the film opens on her painting, the mother whose incestuous love for her son stands between him and his wife, the mother whom the cat belongs to...
The mother, absent yet omnipresent, dead yet incredibly alive throughout the film. The mother, watching through the cat's eyes, like spying through a keyhole. The mother, symbolically blinded by his son's wife when she stabs the cat in the eye. And ultimately taking her revenge on her daughter-in-law, at the very last second through Satan's mewing.

Isn't it enough to consider "Your vice" a highly oedipian giallo?

There's definitely more to "Your vice is a locked room..." than meets the eye. Read from this blog here and there. A short article about Giallo & animals can also be found here.

Decadence

There's a fragrance of the XIXth century decadent literature floating in the atmosphere of ll tuo vizio e una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave (Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key, 1972 - Sergio Martino/Ernesto Gastaldi).

First this title, outrageously long, twisted and complex, which was actually taken from a dialogue between Rassimov & Fenech in Martino's first Giallo: The strange vice of Mrs. Wardh. A reflections of the twisted mind games at work in the film.

Then, the figure of the decadent writer, uninspired and bitter, who despises the others as well as himself, living in the memory of the past, in adoration with the incestuous souvenir of his mother - who from the start is described both as a Lady and a whore -, driving a somptuous 1930s black and deep blue BMW 327 and dedicated to making his wife miserable.

Also, the decaying manor, which precious furniture the writer is forced to sell as he's progressively running out of money, his mother's ancient dress secretly worn by a young black beauty tragically murdered a moment after, the masochistic wife whose life seems to be an endless tunnel of pain, and the beautiful cousin Floriana whose bisexual tendencies serve her materialistic purposes.

Not to forget Bruno Nicolai's great score, chamber music with a typical 70s erotic flavour, which distills a distinguished yet sleazy feeling to it all.

The inner violence and ambiguity of the character's relationships, and the colours, the style, the costumes, the sounds it's wrapped in make the atmosphere of this huis-clos completely suffocating.
Like a world about to collapse.


Despite being underrated, "Your vice is a locked room and only I have the key" is an original take on Giallo by Sergio Martino & Ernesto Gastaldi. Find it here.
And for the soundtrack, it's there.

Edwige's rival

Milan, 1973. To the melody of a sophisticated easy-listening tune, a beautiful young woman decidedly walks into the hall of a modern building and starts joking with the portier.
From the first second, we know that she will not be the usual Giallo heroine - fragile, scared and vulnerable.

As Gianni Ferrio's beautiful music theme goes on, a choir of singers reveals her name: Valentina.
Valentina is Susan Scott, aka Nieves Navarro. In "Death walks at midnight" (Luciano Ercoli, 1973), she introduces a new feminine figure in the genre: empowered, hot tempered and all but shy; she's the screaming queen with an attitude.
A very interesting feminist take on the Giallo heroine, perfectly symmetric to the usual Edwige Fenech part.

Valentina/Susan Scott is very much at the core of the film and definitely drives it from the start.
Not fully though: the first sequence shows her, a fashion model, being set up by her boyfriend in an experimental photoshoot on drugs - where she becomes the witness of a murder. While she thought the experiment would remain anonymous, the next day she finds herself on the cover of a tabloïd which headline reads: "Valentina under the effect of HDS".

Then she starts being very angry.


If "La Morte accarezza a Mezzanotte" is not a great giallo, it is certainly very sophisticated from a cinematographic point of view, and its score is one of the most interesting I've come accross, clearly contributing to the great aesthetics of the film.

Poor Edwige

Edwige Fenech in "The Case of the Bloody Iris": the epitomy of the blonde girl concept as we know it today.

I apologise to the fans, but the certainly beautiful brunette offers quite an appalling spectacle in this rather mediocre giallo.
The Giallo genre is often criticised for showing women as objects, which is a comment I usually strongly disagree with. But in this particular case, I would be proven wrong.

Jennifer (Edwige Fenech) is all but a woman in control in this film. In fact she really goes through the story completely clueless, confused, sexy, screaming and driven by her emotions all the time. A caricature.

The film itself is alike: gross and formulaic. Highly predictable.
An embarrassing proof that sadly, sometimes, the Giallo genre was able to make a fool of itself.

Who directed it? Anthony Ascott. A fake name.

Having said that, there are good things about this film too, but I wanted to start by expressing my disappointment. Read also Michael Mackenzie's point of view in his "Giallo Collection" review.