Unlike Roger Corman’s TALES OF TERROR (1962) or Harold Hoffman’s 1965 sexploitation ver- sion of the story, the two films contained in Arrow’s limited-edi- tion box set should not be con- sidered faithful adaptations of Poe’s tale on either a narrative or even subtextual level. Rather, both, with varying degrees of suc- cess, make use of the events de- picted in the story as a sort of tent pole around which to erect broader narratives. Sergio Martino’s YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED DOOR AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (Il tuo vizio è una stanza chiusa e solo io ne ho la chiave, 1972, 96m 39s) quite successfully employs Poe’s story as the foundation for a highly entertaining giallo, dem- onstrating how easily “The Black Cat” lends itself to a variety of different genres. Suffering from a prolonged case of writer’s block, embittered author Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli) weathers his creative dry spell and increasing poverty by wallowing in alcohol, hosting bacchanalias for the local hip- pie commune, and sexually hu- miliating his wife Irina (Anita Strindberg) and African maid (Angela La Vorgna). When one of Oliviero’s young paramours is found brutally murdered, Irina becomes terrified that her hus- band has been driven mad by his sadistic impulses, a suspicion that is strengthened when their maid is killed in a similar fash- ion. Matters are further compli- cated by the arrival of Oliviero’s beautiful niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech, cast against type), who uses her sexual wiles to exploit tensions within the household for her own ends.
The film’s indebtedness to the Poe story is evidenced by the presence of Satan, the large black cat that Oliviero inherited from his deceased mother, with whom he is rumored to have shared an
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The eponymous feline of Lucio Fulci’s THE BLACK CAT.
incestuous relationship. Along with his mother’s ball gown and portrait, Satan is simultaneously fetishized by Oliviero and de- spised by Irina, who seems to view the animal as an extension of her husband’s brutality. Al- though a number of events in the screenplay involving Satan are lifted directly from Poe’s stories, most prove tangential to the main narrative, though not distractingly so. Furthermore, while the screenplay incorporates numerous (though admittedly now retrograde) signifiers of “per- version,” including alcoholism, lesbianism, incestuous desire, and sadomasochism, the film’s subtext differs greatly from the Poe story, revealing itself to be an examination of predation rather than perverseness. Over the course of its running time, the film offers a veritable menagerie of predators, each largely defined by the cause for his or her ra- pacious behavior, be it addic- tion, embitterment, greed, mental illness, sociopathy, lust, or, perhaps worst of all, inexpli- cable, all-consuming malice. The succession of predatory one-upmanship assures that the film is rarely boring, and proves an effective device for justifying
the screenplay’s numerous twists. The climax, however, makes clever use of Poe’s ending to re- mind the audience that human predators, no matter how cun- ning, are no match for a creature designed solely to stalk and kill its prey. A fascinating aspect of Ernesto Gastaldi’s screenplay is the way in which it constantly shifts the perceived balance of power among its characters, a theme telegraphed through the film’s opening scene in which Oliviero attempts to shock and titillate his companions by brutalizing his wife and then offering his maid as a sexual plaything. When a fe- male guest (who appears to be an uncredited Sandy Dennis) re- sponds by leading the assembled hippies in a protest song while another young woman unabash- edly dances nude, Oliviero’s at- tempts at Sadean transgression are rendered both petty and pro- vincial, and the libertine, in short, is foiled by the liberated. Similarly, while the film regularly traffics the sexual objectification of women— going so far as to introduce one character though a close-up of her wiggling buttocks—it ultimately proves to be a story of female agency, foreshadowed by the fact
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