Attractive, confident and haughty, Mrs. Julie Wardh (picturesque Edwige Fenech) has a plethora of men interested in her. Husband and lovers, some more depraved than others, pursue her in this heady, fast-moving chiller. What makes her increasingly fragile state of mind worse is the knowledge that she also appears to be haunted by a series of vicious killings. A coincidence? Her new lover, George (George Hilton) is somewhat intense. Could he have something to do with it all, do you think? Otherwise known as 'Next!' 'The Next Victim' and 'Blade of the Ripper', this has acquired a reputation as one of the best giallo films, and it is not difficult to see why. The pace does not falter, it is very tightly written and the wonderful twists are delivered with expert ease, and don't let up until the very end. The locations – as in many such productions – are mainly real, not studio sets, and as such are packed with colour and detail, from every rusted radiator to flaking window pane, and the lush expansive exteriors are never less than breath-taking. The direction, by Sergio Martino is faultless (at one point a letter, delivered with flowers to Wardh, reads: 'Your vice is a locked room, and only I have the key', which is also the (English) title of another of Martino's giallo films).For many films of this period, females are portrayed as pretty feinting screamers for pretty brave males to rescue, and yet here, Wardh has every reason for hysterics (Fenech is a legendary performer, due in part to this film – she has since become a prolific producer; her most recent film acting credit is in 'Hostel 2 (2007)') as she is given no respite in between scares and attacks. Crucially, the audience is entirely with her throughout, which makes the fact that she really doesn't appear to stand a chance that much more powerful.

The strongest proof that this Italian Seventies-trash film carries a strength of its own: its female nudity is relatively scarce.First of all, we are presented with a coherent story that makes sense. Second, its plot succeeds in building up real tense. And third, its surprising ending fits in well.For the rest, 'the strange vice of Mrs. Wardh' is very Seventies. And very Italian. Performed by actors & actresses who cannot act. And shot in a pretty mediocre way, even to Seventies-standards.Somehow this strange and incoherent mix keeps you on your seat right up to its very end.

This film came to me as a real surprise: I have recently been rediscovering the film career of Edwige Fenech: she has been for me, and pretty much every other boy born and bred in Italy in the 70s/80s, the prime and foremost reason for early sexual awakening.I have earlier seen the later addition to the trilogy by Fenech/Martino: "Tutti I colori del buio" which, despite being equally stylish, I can at best describe as 'bonkers' in the script department, but that is often the case with giallo.This film positively surprised me, all the elements of the typical giallo are there: dreamy sequences, Freudian references, strong sexual overtones, a killer all dressed in black with leather gloves in close-up and so on, but for once all the plot twists and turns that the film takes as it verges towards its ending are far more than an entertaining mechanism, the whole comes up as a rather coherent story with a bleak, credible portrait of sordid human behaviour. The film also intelligently manages to turn the misogynistic tones that are often associated with giallo right onto its head, the violence also is much less morbid than, say, Dario Argento's work of the same period.And much of the merit goes naturally also to the splendid Edwige: she is perfection as the sensible and fragile Mrs. Wardh and not just physically as some might think, although it's impossible to take the eyes off her whenever she's on screen. Her performance manages to make her look more beautiful than ever if such thing is possible, one of giallo's truly greatest heroines. It's a shame that both her and Martino are remembered more for their sex comedies of a few years later than this gem, when both creative and money capital were rapidly running of Italian 'pulp' film producers.Technically speaking, a film like 'Profondo Rosso' is still far superior if this is what you're after, but on a 'humane' level this is in a totally different league. I recommend to watch this and 'Cani arrabbiati' by Bava of three years later, although this is not really a giallo: they both give a good idea of the cheerful feelings that were going around in Italy in the 70s.

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