The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh
Mrs. Wardh(the fetching Edwige Fenech)has a vice..dangerous men. They excite her sexual desires and director Martino shows this as we peer into her fantasies as many are strangely violent. Julie had married stockbroker Neil(Alberto de Mendoza)to separate herself from Jean(Ivan Rassimov), who fulfilled her sexual needs and hungers. She wished to put that part of her on the backburner, but finds another replacement in the handsome George Corro(George Hilton)who is cock-sure of his abilities at wooing women and catches an eye for Julie.There is a killer of prostitutes in the area which has caused wide-spread paranoia. This is merely a detail until someone photographs Julie making love to George and demands a ransom. It's instantaneous that Jean, a sleaze photographer, is the likely suspect(the person demanding ransom disguised his voice)and Julie's friend Carol(Conchita Airoldi)convinces to replace her at the meeting spot. What Carol doesn't expect is to be killed and is by someone dressed up like the serial killer in the papers. In a car garage leading to Julie's apartment, the same man tries to attack her as she was preparing to take her usual elevator up to home. Scared out of her wits, Julie and husband Neil go over to Jean's place but find him dead in his bathtub. The film then shows someone trying to attack an airplane stewardess who is able to kill him.
The details line up until we're not sure who is trying to kill Julie which provides the key mystery of the film.
I think this film suffers from familiarity with so many different types of mysteries and melodramas and unfortunately doesn't set itself apart from countless clones dealing with the same subjects verbatim. The director has worked with most of this cast over and over so when we see who is actually trying to kill Mrs. Wardh there's not that shock and awe one might expect. Now, this could be because I've watched a few others gialli prior to this one, but this particular giallo really doesn't offer anything really new. It is still quite polished and suspenseful, however, and Martino seems more akin to show lurid sexual activity and the naked bodies of the female form. Fenech just lets herself go in the role and appears quite naked in many ways in the film..particularly the rough fantasy sequences with Ivan Rassimov's Jean.
score 9/10
Scarecrow-88 24 September 2006
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1482017/35618
Pages:
[1]