Alcoholic writer Luigi Pistilli and wife Anita Strindberg draw the battle lines of YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY.
minute per page is the standard estimate.) According to Haber- man, only the flashback se- quences were not part of the script’s Hitchcock-like attention to detail. De Luca’s observations are minimal, mostly as prompted by Haberman.
Other supplements include a theatrical trailer (1m 38s), a TV Spot (22s), two radio spots (1m 36s) that boast the film is “in color,” and a photo gallery (3m 24s) comprised of various poster treatments and publicity material.
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S BLACK CATS: TWO ADAPTATIONS BY SERGIO MARTINO AND LUCIO FULCI
1972/1981, Arrow Video, approx. 187m, $69.95, BD-0 + DVD-0
By John-Paul Checkett
First published in 1843 in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST, Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” has proven a
veritable wellspring for purveyors of horror cinema, inspiring adap- tations by directors ranging from Dwain Esper to Dario Argento. Poe’s original story, framed as the confession of a murderer awaiting the gallows, concerns an unnamed narrator and self- professed animal lover who re- lates how he was driven by alcoholism to mutilate and later kill his beloved pet cat, Pluto. Stricken by remorse, he soon adopts an almost identical pet, only to become consumed by an irrational and overpowering revul- sion toward the beast. When his wife attempts to protect the cat from his murderous wrath, the narrator buries an axe in her head and then bricks her corpse within a basement wall, accidentally imprisoning the cat who later makes its presence known to the investigating authorities. On its surface a simple re- venge tale that ambiguously in- vokes the supernatural through the narrator’s offhanded observa- tion that black cats are often
considered “witches in disguise,” the story is also an examination of what Poe termed “perverse- ness”—the irresistible compulsion to perform an act precisely be- cause one should not. The con- cept, outlined in detail in the author’s “The Imp of the Per- verse,” reflects Poe’s attempts to come to terms with his own al- coholism, and he takes pains to distinguish it not only from the commonplace thrill derived from the violation of taboo, but also from both madness and evil. Unlike the stereotypical mad- man, the perpetrator of the per- verse act is under no delusion as to its nature or likely conse- quences, and is, in fact, often appalled by both. Furthermore, while evil may serve a rational, if contemptible, purpose aligned with the perpetrator’s malignant will, perverseness compels one to behave in a way that assures one’s own physical, psychologi- cal, and even spiritual destruc- tion—importantly, without such devastation being the goal itself.
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