Movies

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (1972) Directed by Sergio Martino, music by Bruno Nicolai. I established an eight-word rule years ago - if a movie has eight words in the title, watch out. This has twelve and thus transcends the rule. In this one the black-clad slasher with the big hooked knife is pushed off into a subplot and the story focuses on the ugly relationship between a dissolute unsuccessful writer sucking down J&B Scotch and his abused wife (Anita Strindberg of the wonderfully sculpted countenance) in a decaying villa. A gang of Party Hippies, a motocross race, and a visiting niece (Edwige Fenech takes on the nudity duties) who sleeps with everyone - EVERYONE, add more detail. Once you get hipped to how the scheme is set up and who is really behind everything, and figure out that a major subplot is lifted from a famous literary source, there are few surprises left in the last few minutes, but the sheer lurid excess keeps it rolling along. They really don't make them like this any more. 6/10

Anita Strindberg and the BLOODY SCISSORS

J&B Scotch - Buy it by the case!

Death Walks on High Heels (1971) Directed by Luciano Ercoli, music by Stelvio Cipriani. A fortune in diamonds is the object of the black-clad slasher and it is extremely helpful that one of the possible possessors of it is a Parisian strip-tease artist. Set in Paris and England, but everybody still speaks Italian. The settings are interesting and colorful, the story convoluted and puzzling, with everyone a suspect and participant, and a big flip-around at the end. It doesn't get real stabby, but one of the main characters is an eye surgeon for some gross-out effect. Gets an extra point for the plot structure, which really goes beyond what you might expect. 7/10