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.

THE OBLONG BOX (1969)

Director: Gordon Hessler

Writers: Lawrence Huntington, Christopher Wicking, Michael Reeves (uncredited), Edgar Allan Poe (claiming to be based on the Poe short story, though using only its title)

Producer: Gordon Hessler

Cast: Vincent Price, Alister Willamson, Peter Arne, Christopher Lee, Hilary Dwyer, Carl Rigg, Harry Baird, Godfrey James, Maxwell Shaw, Uta Levka, Sally Geeson, Rupert Davies, Michael Balfour, Danny Daniels, James Mellor, John Barrie, Ivor Dean, John Wentworth, Hira Talfrey, Betty Woolfe, Martin Terry, Anne Clune, Jackie Noble, Jan Rossini, Ann Barrass, Tara Fernando, Zeph Gladstone, Tony Thawnton, Colin Jeavons, Richard Cornish, Anthony Bailey, Martin Wyldeck, Hedger Wallace, Barbara Kellerman, Andreas Malandrinos, the Oh! Ogunde Dancers 

On a nineteenth-century African plantation, Englishman Sir Edward Markham (Alister Wiliamson) is subjected to an occult African ritual that has disfigured him and unhinged his mind. His plantation co-owner and brother Sir Julian Markham (Vincent Price) returns him to the family manor in England and keeps him chained in an upstairs room. The mad Sir Edward plots to escape and seek revenge.

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Throughout the '60s, American International Pictures specialized in fright flicks based upon the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Although director Roger Corman decided to stop making Poe-based pictures, AIP was not ready to abandon this lucrative horror film subgenre. They retitled their fine and economically produced British film Witchfinder General (1968) as The Conqueror Worm to suggest a Poe connection. The Oblong Box would be their next hardly-Poe-based production.

This was to be the up-and-coming British director Michael Reeves’ follow-up to Witchfinder General. Along with writer Christopher Wicking, Reeves did a lot of reworking on Lawrence Huntington’s original script. However, director Reeves was suffering from drug and mental issues and was replaced early on by Gordon Hessler, who also produced the film. Many lament that not only was young Reeves  soon to die from an overdose, but that he did not get the chance to direct The Oblong Box. I think that the project was turned over to a very capable director, as Gordon Hessler gives us a very bleak and unsettling film. Its success convinced AIP to sign Hessler to a three-picture deal to direct more horror films for them.

While having nothing to do with the Edgar Allan Poe short story its title is taken from, The Oblong Box film still manages a Poe-like feel with its nineteenth-century era and its themes of madness, murder, revenge, family sin, and premature burial. It is a convoluted tale of skulduggery that exposes the often-unjust foundations beneath family fortune and reputation. It also reveals the corruption and lack of ethics behind those of the upper crust. Both the aristocracy and the professional class resort to illegal means and exploit the lower class to achieve their ends. All of this scheming and treachery creates conflicts and complications in the lives of the well-to-do that leads to their ruin. Sir Julian Markham suggests that the fate of his brother Edward is retribution. There is plenty of retribution to go around in The Oblong Box.

As in most of the AIP Poe-based films, The Oblong Box stars Vincent Price. His Sir Julian Markham is not an obsessive neurotic like many of his earlier Poe characters, yet he has his share of emotional baggage and ethical lapses. He presents a very dignified and genial front while being able to manipulate and coerce his dishonest lawyer to commit a crime. Two of Markham’s servants are also privy to his scheme. Despite the risks, this is apparently acceptable to those involved, as it will maintain the dignity of the Markham family image. 

Price’s beautiful co-star from Witchfinder General, Hilary Dwyer, has a much more wholesome relationship with Price’s character this time around as his betrothed Lady Elizabeth. She helps to make Julian Markham a more sympathetic character rather than just a guilty and entitled aristocrat. 

Peter Arne is fine as Samuel Trench, the unethical Markham family lawyer. Trench is instrumental in many of the underhanded shenanigans that result in so many deadly complications. He is also part of the film’s mannered British wit when being offered a drink or ordering tea at the end of scenes involving criminal schemes. He has one of the best moments in the film that typifies director Hessler’s intense and subjective approach to horror. From the mad Sir Edward’s viewpoint, we see a close up of Trench being throttled. Peter Arne’s eyes actually get increasingly bloodshot during this uninterrupted take. 

Many horror buffs are stunned that in a film starring those two terror titans Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, the only scene they share is so brief that Lee barely gets out a single word. That nit to pick aside, Lee has terse and amusing scenes with nearly everyone. His Dr. Neuhartt is another unethical professional that unwittingly contributes to the horror to come. 

Alister Williamson is both scary and sympathetic as the menace of Sir Edward. Williamson spends most of the film with his ruined face off camera or hidden beneath a crimson hood. Perhaps much of the credit for his performance belongs to the vocal performance of another actor that it is rumored to have dubbed his lines. That voice is rich and distinctive while suggesting the pain and madness that drive his character. 

The Oblong Box is one of those films that I appreciate much more after repeat viewings. The intricate and unforeseen consequences of the Markham family crimes and the attempts to maintain class conscious dignity while a madman threatens to destroy it all is very satisfying to this humble and hardworking flashback fanatic. This film also has one of the best finishes that any fright flick could hope for. The direction, dialogue, performances, editing, and music all mesh perfectly to deliver that great last-minute chill. 

THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1986)

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Writers: David Epstein (based on the original story by Edgar Allan Poe)

Producer: Robert A. Halmi

Cast: George C. Scott, Rebecca De Mornay, Val Kilmer, Ian McShane, Neil Dickson, Maud Rayer, Fernand Guiot, Maxence Mailfort, Roger Lumont, Patrick Floersheim, Erick Desmarestz, Yvette Petit, Mak Wilson, Serge Ridoux, Sebastian Roché 

In 19th-century Paris, France, the grisly murders of two women has the city in a state of fear. Retired Police Inspector Auguste Dupin (George C. Scott) seems uninterested in the case or its solution, despite his past crime-solving genius and dedication. 

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The renowned American author Edgar Allan Poe not only was an innovator of horror fiction, he also invented the detective story. In a series of three stories he called "tales of ratiocination," Poe featured the intellectually brilliant character C. Auguste Dupin. The first Dupin case was fittingly as macabre as the horror stories Poe is most celebrated for. "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" was first published in 1841. This was the prototype for the stories of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and the many other genius crime-solvers to come in mystery fiction.

The 1986 television movie adaptation is not the first time the Poe classic had been adapted to film, but it is probably the most faithful. All the particulars about the horrible crime are faithfully presented. Unlike the earlier versions, the main aim of this story seems to focus on the solution to the puzzling case by means of observation and imagination. That was exactly what Poe was concerned with in his original tale.

As with all Poe short stories, the biggest challenge of movie adaptation is to expand upon the original story to make a film feature length. In this film version of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Dupin is no longer a young, reclusive, intellectual bachelor, but, as portrayed by George C. Scott, is a revered police inspector forced into retirement by the jealous Prefect of Police (Ian McShane). Dupin has become a bitter recluse trying to live with his daughter Claire (Rebecca De Mornay) on his meager pension. It is his hurt pride that initially makes him reluctant to take any interest in the mystery of the bizarre slayings making newspaper headlines. This infuriates Claire when her fiancé (Neil Dickson) is jailed as a suspect in the crimes and her crime-solving genius father will not make any effort to prove his innocence. There is also some intrigue regarding the trustworthiness of Claire’s fiancé and of Auguste Dupin’s protégé Phillipe (Val Kilmer) having an obvious attraction to Claire. Additionally, there is the conflict between the put-out-to-pasture Dupin and the vain and inadequate Prefect of Police. More than a solution to this case, we want to see this arrogant official put in his place. I think this is all a very satisfying way to expand the story outward, to become something more than just a bizarre crime puzzle to be solved, and create character empathy and interest. 

Add to that the moody period settings, good performances, and absolute fidelity to the particulars of Poe’s crime and solution, and this flashback fanatic is pleased. 

For some reason, this adaptation gets very little respect. Even as far back as 1986, I suppose attention spans were already being shortened and many could not appreciate the film’s leisurely pace and characters of dignity dealing with their concerns while not losing sight of the baffling and macabre mystery to be solved.

WITCHFINDER GENERAL (1968), aka THE CONQUEROR WORM

Director: Michael Reeves

Writers: Tom Baker, Michael Reeves, (additional scenes) Louis M. Heyward, based on the novel by Ronald Bassett

Producers: Louis M. Heyward, Arnold Miller, Phillip Waddilove, Tony Tenser

Cast: Vincent Price, Ian Ogilvy, Hilary Dwyer, Robert Russell, Rupert Davies, Nicky Henson, Tony Selby, Michael Beint, Bernard Kay, Godfrey James, John Trenaman, Paul Ferris, Bill Maxwell, Hira Talfrey, Maggie Kimberly, Peter Haigh, Peter Thomas, Edward Palmer, Ann Tirard, Alf Joint, David Webb, Lee Peters, David Lyell, Martin Terry, Beaufoy Milton, Michael Segal, Dennis Thorne, Jack Lynn, Toby Lenon, Patrick Wymark, Gillian Aldam, Wilfrid Brambell, Margaret Nolan, Donna Reading, Sally Douglas, Philip Waddilove, Susi Field, Derek Ware, John Kidd 

During the English Civil War in 1645, lawyer Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) and his assistant John Stearne (Robert Russell) travel the land as witchfinders. They are paid to apprehend and force confessions from those accused of witchcraft before executing them. When they accost Sara Lowes (Hilary Dwyer) and condemn her uncle (Rupert Davies) as a witch, Sara’s lover Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy), a Roundhead soldier in Cromwell’s army, vows vengeance.

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Young director Michael Reeves’ third and final film, Witchfinder General, is always remembered for the promise of an important body of Reeves films that should have followed. An overdose of drugs and alcohol cut short his life and career.

This film is also notable for the conflict between the young director and star Vincent Price. Reeves wanted Donald Pleasence in the role of Matthew Hopkins, but American distributor AIP preferred the star power of their Poe films mainstay Vincent Price. Price seemed to be immediately a bit contemptuous of such a young man as director, or perhaps he had heard that Reeves was contemptuous of Price being imposed upon him. Reeves certainly did not want a repeat of the Price characterizations from his other recent films. He repeatedly interrupted Price during his takes to force the actor to underplay with a cold reserve. This resulted in one of Price’s best performances and his most despicable villain. Once Price saw his own performance, he appreciated just what Reeves had helped him achieve and had the class to tell Reeves so. 

The rest of the cast is very fine. Robert Russell, as Matthew Hopkins’ henchman John Stearne, is a real bastard. He openly enjoys the brutality he inflicts, which contrasts to Hopkins’ cold reserve and makes us wonder if Matthew Hopkins actually believes in his cause. Ian Ogilvy plays the likable and stalwart hero that we expect to save the day, and Hilary Dwyer, in her film debut, is his beautiful fiancée. Ogilvy would become Roger Moore’s television successor portraying Simon Templar in the series Return of the Saint a decade later. Hilary Dwyer would soon co-star again with Vincent Price in The Oblong Box (1969) and Cry of the Banshee (1970). 

Michael Reeves crafted a tale that dealt with the historic horror enabled by lawlessness and ignorance which mercenary posers took full advantage of. This film channels the same nihilism as Night of the Living Dead (1968). The horror films of the late '60s began venting the anxieties wrought from shattered optimism. Simply dropping out and turning on would not generate enough peace and love to stop war, end civil unrest, and eliminate the threat of nuclear annihilation. Despite this story taking place three centuries ago, 1968’s Witchfinder General dealt with a theme that is just as relevant today: Society being exploited by those hiding behind professed values and titles to gain personal profit and power. 

The greatest horror of the film is that once accusations are made, the accused are condemned with no hope. Their innocence is never a consideration. Much time and effort is wasted going through the process of forcing confessions from those accused of witchcraft to justify executing them. Those doing “God’s work” to get paid and laid perpetuate this barbarity. Although the film is an adaptation of the novel by Ronald Bassett, the title character of Matthew Hopkins actually existed. 

When AIP distributed the film they tried to pass it off in the US as another of their films based on Edgar Allan Poe stories. They changed the title to The Conqueror Worm and added a voiceover by Vincent Price concluding the film with a quote from the Poe poem. AIP also used this trick back in 1963 to try passing off The Haunted Palace film as a Poe adaptation, though it was actually based on the H.P. Lovecraft novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

"Oh, stop your gabbling," I can hear Matthew Hopkins scolding. Let me conclude by saying that horror fans wanting to see an uncompromising slice of historic barbarity and hypocrisy starring one of the genre’s legends need to see Witchfinder General. Definitely not for the kiddies, even if they like baked potatoes.