YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

VICE-- which has a much longer title that I refuse to type out-- is one of the all-time best giallos, thanks to a script that plays on all the familiar tropes of the genre while also adapts aspects of Poe's "The Black Cat." Like Edgar Ulmer's 1934 movie of that name, VICE serves Poe by taking a free-form approach to the short story. Indeed, though Poe's story doesn't utilize any of the incest-tropes seen in "Berenice" and "House of Usher," Martino and his scripters produce a ghoulish thriller in which the monstrous feline becomes the symbol for the devouring female.

Count Oliviero Ruvighny (Luigi Pistilli) resides in a run-down Italian castle with his wife Irina (Anita Strindberg) and a few servants, one being the Negress Brenda. We first see Oliviero holding a drunken revel-- one of many, we're later told-- in which he plays hosts to a motley crew of Italian hippies (who even sing an American pop song). The partygoers are there to provide the viewer with various details about their host: that's he's a failed writer and alcoholic, that he was perhaps a little too close to his late mother Esther, and that he owns a black cat, Satan, who belonged to his mother and who more or less represents her influence. 

The Count also despises his wife, scorning her as a "whore." Right away this is a good foretaste of Freudian terrain: for Oliviero only his mother was a saint, while all other women, the women whom he's willing to screw, are prostitutes. Oliviero humiliates Irina before his guests, and she gets even, sort of, by donning a courtly dress owned by Oliviero's mother. He slaps her down, but the message is clear: "if I'm a whore, so was your mother." Yet Satan carries on whatever feminine war of wills existed between Irina and Esther, attacking Irina at times or preying on her pet doves.

When not giving parties, Oliviero cruises into the neighboring town to hook up with younger women. (Oddly, since he's not touching Irina any more, one might say that he's subconsciouly placed her in the same untouchable category as Dead Esther.) The middle-aged Casanova makes a date with a former student, but someone slashes her to death. The police interview Oliviero and he fabricates an alibi. Later the maid Brenda-- whom Oliviero earlier abused at the party, talking about how great colonialism was because it meant he had a sexy Black servant-- capriciously puts one the courtly dress of the Count's mother. Someone kills her in the castle, but Oliviero persuades Irina to help conceal the body and to wash the bloodied dress.

By chance Oliviero's niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) arrives. At first she seems to be more friendly toward Irina, but it soon develops that she's playing a game that includes seducing her uncle, who has no problem with sexing up daughter-substitutes. Irina catches the dove-killing cat and puts out one of its eyes as Poe's narrator does to his nemesis, but this just increases her mania. Without going into specifics, Floriana plays a game designed to heighten the hostilities between the couple, and this leads to a sex-reversal version of the Poe denouement, with Irina killing her husband and concealing his body behind a plaster wall. One guess what untimely clue exposes her crimes to the police. 

The giallo-killings are nicely grotesque, but they're not as interesting as the many transgressive incidents between the deteriorating aristocrat and the two voracious vixens. There's even a slight suggestion that Irina-- who's something of a schemer herself-- might have actually cared for Oliviero if he hadn't been such a bastard. I don't think the fine points of the plot hold up, but Strindberg gives a fine, multi-layered performance, while both Fenech and Pistilli distinguish themselves ably.