There are a hundred reasons to watch Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, but let’s be honest — for me, it’s just one reason: Edwige Fenech. You could strip this thing of the cat, the Poe references, the overripe dialogue, and all the wine-soaked cruelty, and if she was still in it, I’d still watch. Hell, I’d watch her read a phone book in Esperanto. And I’d probably call it art.
Martino’s Mirage of Madness
Sergio Martino made this thing in ’72, back when Italian thrillers were a strange cocktail of Hitchcock, pulp paperbacks, and whatever drugs the costume designer was taking. The plot is a stew of marital misery, small-town sleaze, and dead women ending up behind walls like they owed somebody rent. A washed-up writer named Oliviero — the kind of guy who looks like he smells of cigars, mildew, and regret — lives in a decaying villa with his wife Irina, whom he treats like something stuck to his shoe.
And then there’s Floriana — the niece. Edwige. She sweeps into the villa like a slow, wicked smile. The air changes. Everyone starts doing dumb things, usually in her direction. Martino knew what he had — she’s the real locked room in this picture, and the key’s been melted down and sold for wine money.
The Plot, or the Excuse for Fenech
Officially, it’s a mystery: women get murdered, secrets come crawling out of the walls, and there’s this black cat named Satan who might be the most honest character in the whole damn movie. There’s incest rumors, biker boyfriends, a stash of family jewels worth killing over, and more betrayal than a soap opera running on speed.
But that’s just the scaffolding. The real show is watching Edwige glide through scenes, switching from innocent to dangerous to playful without ever letting you see the gears turn. When she’s on screen, the murders feel like side quests.
Everyone’s Drowning, Some in Blood, Some in Lust
Luigi Pistilli plays Oliviero like a man rotting from the inside — booze, bitterness, and maybe a little bit of madness. Anita Strindberg’s Irina is both victim and schemer, which in giallo terms makes her practically relatable. The villa feels like a halfway house for bad intentions.
But when Fenech enters? The whole balance tilts. She toys with Irina, sleeps with her uncle, seduces the boyfriend, and still manages to come off as magnetic instead of monstrous. That’s the kind of black magic they don’t teach in acting school.
Sex, Scissors, and the Poe Cat
Martino pretends he’s adapting Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat, but really he’s just borrowing the feline and the “body in the wall” bit. Everything else is pure 1970s Italian excess: lurid sex, baroque violence, and enough zoom lenses to make you dizzy. The scissors get more screen time than half the cast.
The violence is nasty but stylized — no buckets of gore, but the kills have that sharp, mean quality that sticks with you. And the sex… well, Martino knew how to frame his women like a dirty postcard someone left on the altar.
Why This Works (for Me)
Here’s the truth: if Edwige Fenech wasn’t in this, it’d still be a solid giallo, maybe a 6 out of 10. With her, it’s an 8, easy. She’s the spark in the gasoline. Every giallo needs that one character who might stab you or kiss you depending on the wine — she’s that, distilled.
There’s this scene where she’s in her late aunt’s dress, playing this game of seduction and danger with Oliviero, and it’s absurd and hypnotic at the same time. You want to yell at the characters, “Don’t do it!” but you know they will, because you would too.
The Ending: Bodies, Betrayals, and That Damn Cat
The last act is a carousel of double-crosses. Irina’s been playing her own long game, her lover’s been killing on the side, and people keep winding up dead in poetic little accidents. The motorcycle crash. The cliff push. It’s all wrapped up with a police discovery straight out of Poe — the walled-up corpse, and Satan’s meow ratting out the whole scheme.
You leave the film half-drunk on its madness, the way you do after a long night you shouldn’t have enjoyed but did.
Final Drink at the Bar
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key is messy, mean, and morbidly beautiful. It’s a house full of liars, lovers, and losers circling each other like vultures — and in the middle of it, Edwige Fenech, untouchable and magnetic, pulling everyone into her orbit.
Watch it for the giallo atmosphere, the Martino flair, the sleazy elegance. But really, watch it because Edwige is in it. That’s reason enough.
Edwige Fenech – Italy’s cult movie beauty queen – https://pochepictures.com/edwige-fenech-from-beauty-queen-to-cult-cinema-icon/
