The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (Italian: Lo strano vizio della Signora Wardh) is a 1971 giallo mystery directed by Sergio Martino and starring Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Ivan Rassimov, and Alberto de Mendoza. The plot follows a diplomat’s wife in Vienna who believes she is being stalked by her former abusive lover while a razor killer stalks the city. For BDSM-adjacent film maps it matters because Julie’s past with Jean is framed as a sadomasochistic relationship that curdled into abuse—sex, fear, and sadistic games braided into classic giallo style. Just before release, an Italian woman named Mrs. Ward threatened legal action over the original title’s possible damage to her reputation, so an “h” was added to “Ward.” U.S. release titles included Blade of the Ripper; alternate names include Next! and The Next Victim.
Plot: Vienna Razors, Julie’s Past, and George’s Seduction
A maniac is murdering women in Vienna with a straight razor. Julie Wardh and her diplomat husband Neil return after time in New York. Julie married Neil partly to escape Jean, her former lover, whose sadomasochistic dynamic with her had become abusive. On her first night back she receives flowers and a sinister note from Jean. At a high-society party, friend Carol introduces her Australian cousin George. Carol and George are the only heirs of a wealthy dead uncle. George flirts with Julie, who is unhappy in her neglectful marriage. She leaves after spotting Jean; outside he confronts her about their past and offers a ride home. Neil arrives, slaps Jean, and Jean only laughs and walks away.
After a lunch Carol arranges, George and Julie begin an affair despite her reluctance. A blackmailer phones, threatening to tell Neil. Julie suspects Jean; Carol insists on meeting the blackmailer in Julie’s place. At Schönbrunn Palace Park, Carol is murdered with a straight razor. Julie pushes police toward Jean, but Jean has a solid alibi. Later Julie is attacked in her building’s parking garage by a razor-wielding figure and escapes. After she tells Neil, he arms himself and forces a visit to Jean’s residence—where they find Jean’s body in a bloody bathtub.
Spain, Fake Death, and the Real Conspiracy
Terrified of staying in Vienna, Julie secretly leaves Neil for Spain with George. Back in Vienna, one intended victim of the razor killer kills him in self-defense. Julie is relieved the dead man is a stranger—until stalking continues in Spain under notes signed “Jean,” and she breaks down. When George goes for a doctor, Jean—who faked his death—ambushes Julie and stages the kitchen as a carbon-monoxide suicide. George and the doctor break in and pull her out; the doctor works to save her while George calls an ambulance.
At the police station, authorities tell George and a summoned Neil that Julie has died and that the death is ruled suicide. Neil accuses George of murder despite the doctor’s alibi. George drives to a remote meeting with Jean, whom he hired to kill Julie. Jean demands pay and a fake passport for Rio; George shoots him and stages a suicide so Jean can never testify. Meeting Neil afterward, the two reveal their conspiracy: Carol’s death makes George sole heir; Julie’s death yields a huge insurance payout Neil needs to avoid bankruptcy. To alibi each other and blame the razor killer, Neil killed Carol in the park while George attacked Julie in the garage, then hired Jean after the real razor killer died. Neil spots Julie alive on the roadside; police chase the pair off a cliff to their deaths. The doctor had saved Julie; police faked her death to force George and Neil into a meeting after Carol’s murder failed to match the razor killer’s modus operandi. Julie is consoled as they drive away—survivor of both sadistic ex and husband-lover conspiracy.
Cast and Title Games
Edwige Fenech headlines as Julie Wardh, with George Hilton as George, Ivan Rassimov as the dangerous ex Jean, and Alberto de Mendoza among the principal players (including Neil in the conspiracy architecture). The film’s star wattage and Martino’s stylish direction helped fix it as a signature early-1970s giallo for international cult audiences. Title history is itself a small scandal: the letter “h” was added to “Ward” after an Italian woman named Mrs. Ward threatened legal action over the original title’s potential damage to her good name, just before release. U.S. viewers often met the film as Blade of the Ripper; other alternate titles include Next! and The Next Victim. That branding chaos is typical of export giallo—one Italian erotic-thriller identity, several English exploitation masks.
Critical Reception
AllMovie wrote that “Sergio Martino’s first entry into Italy’s giallo genre delivers everything this style of thriller requires and then some,” calling it “a skillful example of how the giallo can be a head-spinning experience in style over substance.” That style-first praise fits the genre’s fetish for gloved killers, glamorous victims, baroque murder set pieces, and erotic dread—here amplified by Julie’s sadomasochistic history with Jean, the razor iconography, blackmail, and the staged sadistic violence of the husband-lover conspiracy. Martino’s debut in the form announced a director who understood that giallo heat lives as much in fashion, architecture, and sexual unease as in the final twist.
Why It Lands on a BDSM Film Map
This is not a consent-forward D/s romance. Jean’s “strange vice” with Julie is abuse dressed in sadomasochistic memory; the razor murders and staged suicides are criminal horror, not negotiated kink. The film still matters for adult media history because past SM structures the heroine’s fear: marriage as escape from a sadistic ex, flowers and notes as stalking protocol, fake death and carbon-monoxide staging as terminal “scene.” Fenech’s star vehicle made those elements international drive-in and home-video currency. Related shelves: Italian films of 1971, Martino’s thriller run, Edwige Fenech gialli, razor-killer iconography, and sadism-and-fear cinema that borrows SM aesthetics without community ethics. Watch it for Vienna steel, Schönbrunn murder, the parking-garage attack, the bathtub corpse, Spain’s false Jean, and the cliff-road unmasking of Neil and George—not as a how-to of power exchange, but as a stylish map of how erotic fear and financial conspiracy share the same blade.
