I’ve been on a viewing jag over the last couple of weeks. Marx Brothers films, Russ Meyer films, an old TV show, a rare Japanese thriller, and a Mario Bava giallo.
I’ve been.. a week? into the final movement.
The title is stolen from the giallo film by Sergio Martino, starring the classic giallo actress Edwiga Fenech, called Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. Like all giallo it’s expressionist thriller, and this title comes from a previous film of his (same year, also Ms. Fenech) where a hapless victim receives a written message saying, without context and never explained: “your vice is a locked room.” We all have our creative byways.
In 1966 and 1967, Margheriti made these four sci-fi films loosely connected by the same space station (Gamma One), the same sets, and the same characters. (Margheriti also directed, among many other films, Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules (1964) which was part of my sword and sandal obsession over the past couple of months). Ivan Reiner wrote the screenplay for all four movies.
Continue reading Antonio Margheriti’s “Gamma One” quadrilogy
