YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972)

Director: Sergio Martino

Writers: Luciano Martino, Sauro Scavolini, Ernesto Gastaldi, Adriano Bolzoni, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”

Producer: Luciano Martino

Cast: Anita Strindberg, Luigi Pistilli, Edwige Fenech, Riccardo Salvino, Angela La Vorgna, Ivan Rassimov, Daniela Giordano, Enrica Bonaccorti, Franco Nebbia, Bruno Boschetti, Marco Mariani, Nerina Montagnani, Carla Mancini, Ermelinda De Felice, Dalila Di Lazzaro (uncredited) 

At his rundown villa in the Italian countryside, author Oliviero Rouvigny (Luigi Pistilli) hosts decadent parties. Oliviero is a bitter alcoholic that has not written anything for over a year. He abuses his wife Irina (Anita Strindberg), is obsessed with his late mother Countess Esther, and only has affection for his mother’s black cat named Satan. After a past student and lover of the author is murdered, Oliviero is questioned by the police. As more victims are found, Irina is afraid that her cruel, unstable husband is responsible for the killings. 

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Mixing 1970s amoral decadence of the idle rich with Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 story “The Black Cat” and adding a bit of the French film Diabolique (1955) for a garnish, director Sergio Martino serves up a heady giallo concoction with the timeless title Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. Martino directed Italian films of many genres, but he seems to be most appreciated for his giallo films. At the time of its release, this film was not as successful as hoped and Martino did not hold it in very high regard. However, the French critics seemed to groove on it and it has become a must-see title for giallo fans. In more recent years, Martino himself has warmed up to it and feels it holds up well. 

Between the acts of sex and violence, most giallo films keep the audience guessing about who is guilty and what their motives are. This is a film where nearly everyone is presented as shallow, irrational, listless, or unsympathetic. As a result we never really get a handle on these characters and they often prove capable of anything. There is probably no giallo film more decadent than this one. 

The ringmaster for this circus of sin is Oliviero Rouvigny. It is this character’s nihilism that seems to seep into all those around him. He holds everyone in contempt. They are there for his convenience to pass judgment on or to use and abuse. His failed-writer’s ego must still need to maintain some air of intellectual superiority. Perhaps he justifies his lack of creativity by decreeing that all others are worthless and the world is hopeless. We have no qualms about Oliviero becoming a murder suspect once the killings begin. 

I suppose we could cut Oliviero a little slack, as his mother the Countess Esther was a successful actress who was very promiscuous, may have been mad, and slept with her son; that’s bound to mess a kid up. That also seems to have saddled Oliviero with an incestuous fixation lasting beyond his mother's death. Yup, the guy has some issues. 

Then again, Oliviero inherited a large estate and the family jewels so he should have it made. But he has become so bitter and despondent that he no longer works, he allows his huge villa to fall into disrepair, he assaults and humiliates his beautiful wife, he treats his maid (Angela Le Vorgna) like a slave, his ongoing affair with a girl (Daniela Giordano) began when he taught her in high school, and he is putting the moves on his sexy niece (Edwige Fenech). 

Well, maybe he’s not all bad. After all, Oliviero does love his black cat Satan. That’s the cat that used to belong to his mother. That’s the cat he lovingly strokes as he gets plastered on J&B Scotch while staring longingly at that huge painting of his dead mother. Ah hell, forget it. There are no redeeming features at all in this guy and Luigi Pistilli plays him to a tee. 

As the long-suffering Olviero’s wife Irina, Anita Strindberg earns our sympathies immediately. However, we wonder just how she wound up in this miserable situation and why she continues to put up with it. Is she a masochist or so unstable that she can’t fend for herself? Strindberg’s beauty graced many giallo films, and her performance here is one of her best. 

Another giallo queen, Edwige Fenech, appears here as Oliviero’s unpredictable and uninhibited niece Floriana. Fenech found even greater fame in sex comedies, but her creamy, curvy form was always a highlight in her giallo films.

There is another character that I just have to mention: Dario (Riccardo Salvino), the horny milkman and motocross racer. Not only is he upfront about his lechery with any hot chick, as if he is the proverbial God’s gift to women, but he acts as if his attitude is perfectly wholesome. Was this some sort of typically Italian machismo in the ’70s, and were women actually amenable to such cocksure conceit? Maybe that’s how a creep like Oliviero scored with Irina. Sure, plenty of women who can have their pick of the horndog pack choose assholes, but this wolf Dario seems like the closest thing to a pleasant character in this story and I still kept hoping he would get wasted. 

By now you should be getting the picture here: If any giallo exemplifies the depiction of the lack of a moral center and character integrity typical in the genre, it is this one. Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is of interest to those of us that like to see the evil twists and turns of obsession and deceit among members of the amoral upper crust who have done nothing of merit to deserve their prosperity. The satisfaction provided by many giallo films is that the well-to-do sociopaths usually get what they deserve, unlike many of their real-life counterparts.

I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE (1958)

Director: Gene Fowler, Jr.

Writer: Louis Vittes

Producer: Gene Fowler, Jr.

Cast: Tom Tryon, Gloria Talbott, Alan Dexter, John Eldredge, Ken Lynch, Chuck Wassil, Jean Carson, Maxie Rosenbloom, Valerie Allen, Peter Baldwin, Robert Ivers, Ty Hardin (as Ty Hungerford), James Anderson, Jack Orrison, Steve London, (and uncredited cast) Charles Gemora, Joe Gray, Tony Di Milo, Darlene Fields, Bess Flowers, Helen Jay, Stuart Hall, Arthur Lovejoy, Harold Miller, Ralph Manza, Ron Nyman, Bill Scully, Sherry Staiger, Mary Treen 

Driving home from his stag party on the eve of his wedding, Bill Farrell (Tom Tryon) is stopped and abducted by an inhuman being. The next day Bill arrives at the last minute for the marriage ceremony. His bride Marge (Gloria Talbott) notices a change in Bill’s behavior during their honeymoon. After a year of married life, Marge is still confused and upset about her husband’s strange manner. Eventually, Marge discovers that an imposter from another planet has replaced Bill. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

Nowadays, so-called reality television’s confessional and confrontational nature panders to its audience’s morbid curiosity by eavesdropping on all sorts of dysfunctional relationships. Since most of the people featured in such shows are exhibitionists, I really can’t have too much sympathy for them. How serious can their issues be if they are exploiting them to get attention? 

Back in the buttoned-down 1950s, people weren’t scrambling down a shortcut to fame by begging to have their vanity and hang-ups exposed for all the world to see. The only way you were going to get the lowdown on extraterrestrial wife swapping was to see it dramatized up on the silver screen. The confessional and exploitative nature of the movie title I Married a Monster from Outer Space is just the hook needed to reel in the sci-fi sensation seekers. However, the viewer will also find it presents a heroine in a situation far more sympathetic and compelling than whether conceited jerks marry for fame and fortune or if celebrity families have any values left once the camera is rolling. 

The body snatcher plot in this sci-fi fright flick is hell-bent on using women for sex and procreation within the confines of marriage. This is a rather warped reinforcement of conduct in traditional, committed relationships. As others have pointed out, I Married a Monster from Outer Space seems gamophobic. In the very first scene, we see Bill Farrell and his pals getting hammered at a local bar while lamenting the end of Bill’s bachelorhood. No congratulations are offered; only drunken condolences that Bill takes in good humor as just some manly ribbing. This just sets the tone for a movie that is always undermining the notion of wedded bliss.

It is also rather ironic that responsible behavior becomes the norm when the human husbands are swapped out for their alien duplicates. The aliens keep hanging out at their human predecessors’ favorite gin joint, but they hardly touch their drinks and don’t fraternize with the B-girls. You’ve got to wonder: Is it marital happiness that makes hubbies behave, or are they no longer human? Take my word for it, ladies; you’re better off with a beer guzzler and martini swiller, like me. 

Marge becomes the heroine of the film that has to cope with stresses that anyone could face in an incompatible marriage. Her new husband Bill has become cold and distant. He becomes irritable when Marge suggests that their failure to have a child is something Bill should see a doctor about. Marge’s first impression is that Bill is not like the man she fell in love with and she does not understand the change in him. Once Marge realizes that her husband has actually been replaced by a being from another planet, her troubles really begin. Marge tries to keep her “husband” from knowing she has discovered his secret while she can get no one to believe her wild story. To make matters even worse, there seems to be conspiratorial behavior in the town that keeps Marge from phoning or sending out any message and prevents her from leaving. 

The uneasy aspect of this film that made it resonate with audiences at the time is the corruption of the nuclear family. The expectation for almost everyone in 1950s America was to get married, settle down, and raise some kids. Ideally, that would be based on a loving relationship between two people suited for each other. The husband being substituted by an extraterrestrial that only got hitched to perform stud service needed to perpetuate a dying race is pretty creepy. If that alien, who had the good fortune of assuming the role of a hunk like Bill Farrell, knew that his outer space spunk was incompatible with earth women, he probably would have stayed single to run a merry mating marathon playing the field. However, he did marry a babe like Marge who really wants some kids. So, if I were in his penny loafers, I would do my best to see to it that the honeymoon never ends. If at first you don’t conceive, try, try again, and again, and again… 

The ticklish subject of sterility is intriguing because it confounds the childbearing motivations of both the human Marge and her alien substitute husband. “Bill’s” discomfort about the issue plays out like any macho insecurity to Marge, but his real concern is that the secret of his alien biology might be exposed by a medical exam. Again, this film raises an uneasy aspect of domestic intimacy that is given a horrific edge. 

As our newlywed heroine Marge Farrell, Gloria Talbott is very good at playing the full range of emotions from expectant bride to frustrated wife to domestic prisoner. She certainly earns our empathy as someone confused and frightened while trying to retain her composure most of the time. She is also aware of how difficult it will be to get anyone to believe her knowledge about an alien invasion. Talbott’s performance and the writing keeps the film from becoming as hysterical as its title suggests. 

While desperate to fulfill their mission of avoiding extinction by breeding with Earth women, the aliens are grappling with the human emotions they acquire when they assume human form. Tom Tryon is just right as the alien Bill Farrell. He manages to seem rather cold without becoming a robotic caricature. Tryon is very effective when he expresses some sentiment that has an extra meaning being expressed by an alien who does not realize Marge is also aware of his secret. This alien actually becomes sympathetic before the end of the film. We don’t approve of his methods, but we can certainly understand his motives. 

In just the previous year, director Gene Fowler, Jr., dealt with another confessional-titled horror film, I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). He also managed to work some honest emotion out of that simpler, but no less wild, concept. In both films, Fowler manages some scary payoffs. His extensive film editing experience was a great asset in effective and efficient filmmaking. It is a shame Fowler did not do many more horror films. 

Seeing just how inhuman these invaders really are amps up the creep factor about them having sex with human women. Makeup artist and costume designer Charles Gemora created this film’s grotesque aliens and performed as one of them. Gemora often appeared as his own creations. Ever since silent films, he had made many film appearances as movie gorillas in his self-made suit. He also performed as the Martian that Gene Barry and Ann Robinson have a close encounter with in The War of the Worlds (1953). 

The special visual effects were in the capable hands of John P. Fulton. He had done very impressive work for some classic Universal Pictures horrors of the ’30s and ’40s, worked frequently on Alfred Hitchcock’s films, and had already won three Academy Awards by the time he contributed his movie magic to I Married a Monster from Outer Space. It is Fulton’s effects work that really drives home the alien nature of this movie’s menace.

Don’t let the spell-it-all-out spectacle of the title fool you. I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a well-made sci-fi thriller with good performances, some dark humor, and an uneasy intimacy. Best of all is its moral: If someone has had one too many, relax! That means they’re only human, not from another planet.