The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971) on Netflix
Julie Wardh lives in Vienna with her diplomat husband Neil, and a razor killer is stalking the city. Her former lover Jean sends flowers, and her friend's cousin George Corro pursues her.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.9/106,413 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
Julie Wardh comes home to Vienna from New York with her diplomat husband Neil. A killer has been attacking women in the city with a straight razor, and the police have no lead. Neil is often away, and Julie is unhappy in the marriage. Jean, the former lover who treated her badly, sends her flowers with a note. Her friend Carol brings her to a party and introduces her cousin George; the pair have just inherited their uncle's estate. George courts her, and with her husband gone so much she starts an affair with him. An anonymous caller then demands 20,000 schillings to keep the affair quiet.
Cast
- Luis de Tejadaas The inspector
- Marella Corbias Victim who escapes from the killer
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Just before the film's release, the letter "h" was added to the title character's name after an Italian woman named Ward threatened legal action, claiming the original title could damage her good name.
SPOILER
The plot draws on the real Genaro Fenaroli case, a life-insurance murder that became a media sensation in Italy.- Part of a sex scene between George Hilton and Edwige Fenech was cut by censors during the film's initial domestic run and only later reintegrated for home media.
- A variant of Nora Orlandi's "Dies Irae" theme was later reused by Quentin Tarantino as a recurring theme in Kill Bill: Volume 2.
- Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani have paid the film repeated tributes: a scene in their The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (2013) is patterned on one of Julia Wardh's flashbacks, and Orlandi's "Sequence 25" is on the soundtrack of Reflection in a Dead Diamond (2025).
- The Wardhs' home, the fictional Stephan Residence, was a composite: Vienna's Haus des Buches library supplied the exteriors and Rome's Casa Papanice its vivid interiors, designed by architect Paolo Portoghesi.
- According to George Hilton, he already knew Edwige Fenech before her relationship with producer Luciano Martino, who leaned on him to make introductions and rewarded him with a part in the film.
