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. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review 

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.