The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971) – S. Martino

Italian giallo films are not for everyone.  Wikipedia suggests that they are “murder mystery horror-thriller” films and they are not without sex and violence.  The classic format is a black-gloved sex killer on the loose in some Italian city, a killer who wears a mask and who is not unmasked until the very end of the film, revealing one of the central characters.  In Sergio Martino’s first giallo, that’s exactly the formula.  Poor Julie (Edwige Fenech) feels she is being gaslighted by her ex-lover Jean, seemingly a sadistic creep, who might be stalking her, leaving roses with cryptic notes, even though Julie is now married to a diplomat whose work at the US embassy in Vienna keeps him away all the time.  This gives Julie the opportunity to meet and fall in love with “Australian” George Corro (George Hilton) who is in Italy to receive an inheritance from a long lost uncle (that he will share with one of Julie’s friends, his long lost cousin Carol).  All the while, Vienna is prowled by a black-gloved sex killer and Julie may be his next target.  When she’s blackmailed by someone threatening to reveal her affair to her husband, she sends Carol to the rendezvous instead – and of course she’s murdered.  At this point, I felt the film was pretty straightforward and I also felt that I knew exactly who the killer was.  However, at this point, I was very wrong and a plot-twist (or two or three) lay just ahead.  I won’t spoil them for you but if this is possibly your cup-of-tea, this was a more enjoyable (less confusing, better dubbed) giallo than some others I have seen. Also on Tubi. (Oh, and the h was added to Wardh after a real Mrs. Ward threatened to sue the producers!).