Der Killer von Wien

Sergio Martino's "The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh" is one of the better giallo offerings, basically because it is entertaining from beginning to end. There aren't too many memorable moments, however: after all this time all I could remember about it was the one scene where the women at the party are wearing paper dresses and begin to tear them off each other.

Also, I couldn't forget the fantastic title, made weird by the extraneous "h" at the end of the last name. If I remember correctly, a real life Mrs Ward heard about the movie's production and complained, thinking it might sully her reputation, so instead of choosing another name for the character, they merely added a letter that wouldn't change the pronunciation.

Aside from that, it's all pretty standard. There's a killer on the loose, and the ending packs in some double crosses that are kind of hard to swallow. There's no real suspense, and although the movie has the usual nudity and sex, no real eroticism.

It's also not that violent. "The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh" may feature the single most unrealistic throat slashing I've seen in a movie. There's no attempt to simulate a wound, and there isn't even that much blood.

The movie is about the always captivating Edwige Fenech as the stupidly named Mrs Wardh-with an "H", who had a weird sadomasochistic relationship with a guy who looks like Buffalo Bill from "Silence of the Lambs", but ditched him for safety and monotony from an older, much more boring man. She starts getting anonymous letters about her "strange vice", and there's a killer on the loose.

As I said the typical giallo twists in the tail are a little hard to bear, the movie has little in the way of suspense, but it's always entertaining and Edwige Fenech is almost always worth watching in gialli.

THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH is another classic giallo from Director Sergio Martino. The magnificent Edwige Fenech stars as Julie Wardh, a diplomat's bored wife who is haunted by her past affair with a sexual deviant. Meanwhile, a black-gloved serial murderer is carving up beautiful women nearby.

This is Ms. Fenech's movie and she's a true marvel, whether clothed or unclothed. Her icon status in this genre is beyond debate.

Loaded with mystery, suspense, bloody deaths, a variety of European locations, copious female nudity, and red herrings to distract us, this is among Mr. Martino's best efforts. The multi-twist finale is one for the ages!...

Much like the slasher films of the U.S., the Italian giallo movement is more known for its incredibly high highs than it's truly awful lows. It becomes fairly obvious once you start seeking a lot of these films out that there are more lousy ones than great ones, but every now and then, one surprises you and The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is, indeed, very surprising.

Taking a more thoughtful and character driven approach to giallo storytelling, it focuses on Julie, an ambassador's wife who's gotten out of a troubled relationship with a sadist and just wants to move on with her life. It doesn't help that there's a mad razor murderer out there and her former lover has been stalking her. Even worse, she falls for a mysterious and handsome friend of a friend who complicates things even more.

The stunning Austrian location photography, beautiful music score, and hypnotic presence of Edwige Fenech helps things move along at a nice pace and having interesting character drama keeps things exciting even when the mad razor slasher isn't terrorizing anyone. This might make for a good gateway giallo for those unfamiliar with the genre. It's not as wild or supernatural as some of the nuttier ones and not as deathly dull as many of the lesser tier ones.

THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH (Sergio Martino - Italy/Spain 1970).

A bit of an essential Giallo entry, Martino's first thriller, although I personally prefer his fourth giallo YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972), also starring Edwige Fenech, which has the pleasant setting of a country-estate and is even more lurid, over-the-top and slightly less predictable than this one.

This was Fenech's first starring role for producer (and lover) Luciano Martino and the rest of the cast soon became Martino-regulars, playing very similar roles in his later films: Edwige Fenech as calculating victim, George Hilton as the ever-conniving smoothie and evil-looking Ivan Rassimov as the malicious outsider who would become one of the regular bad guys in Italian genre cinema. Fenech plays the kind of character here that would become her trademark, a sexually liberated, glamorous and utterly shallow fashionista. She plays Julie Wardh, the restless wife of an official at the American embassy in Vienna and an investment broker (either one of these, or both, quite an unusual combination of professions!) who is disturbed by reports about a sex killer. She is convinced she is being stalked by Jean (Rassimov), a sadistic ex-lover, and, worse still, suspects that he may the killer. We also learn, through numerous flashbacks, that they had quite a kinky and sadomasochistic relationship. In the meantime a killer, a blonde woman is slashed to death while taking a shower. This doesn't stop Julie from a little fawning with George (a suave George Hilton), the cousin of her attractive friend Carol. Unsurprisingly, she's the next target of the razor-killer who terrorizes her in an underground car park and even all the way into Spain, where she thought she was save.

Many of Martino's films feel a bit over-polished to me. I recently watched a whole bunch of his films, including his crime thriller THE VIOLENT PROFESSIONALS (1973) as well as Fulci's DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING (1972), which easily is superior to this one, but very raw, even somewhat shabby and unpolished in comparison with Martino's carefully stylized productions. Certainly a handsome production with substantial doses of sexual perversion and misogynistic violence and enough twists and turns to make for an entertaining thriller. And one has to give it to him, Martino has a real knack in framing some impressive shots, such as the glass-breaking scene in one of Fenech's flashbacks. The plot is fairly straight-forward, not needlessly over-complicated and by giallo-standards, the number of oddball characters and bizarre suspects is limited, but the ending is incredibly far-fetched and even hints at the super-natural. Where did that suddenly came from, Gastaldi? Logic and common sense is best left home when watching this one, but - unless you're on medication - you're probably gonna need a couple of drinks to fully appreciate this pleasantly lurid masochistic puzzle.

Camera Obscura --- 7/10

The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh was the first giallo movie I saw and I remember thinking the main actress Edwige Fenech was beautiful beyond words. Saw it again recently on Tubi and unlike a lot of movies where over time my earlier opinion changes this time my opinion actually elevated in my admiration for her. She is mesmerizing and this movie has great atmosphere.