La chiave (1983)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Tinto Brass

Writers:

Junichirô Tanizaki (novel)
Tinto Brass (writer)

Release Date:

19 October 1983 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A husband and wife lock their diaries in a drawer and also know that they read each other's entries, a device which takes them from one sexual encounter to another. |

Plot Keywords:

Husband And Wife | Diary | Male Rear Nudity | Church | Adulterous Wife

Cast

Frank Finlay	...	Nino Rolfe
Stefania Sandrelli	...	Teresa Rolfe
Franco Branciaroli	...	Laszlo Apony
Barbara Cupisti	...	Lisa Rolfe
Maria Grazia Bon	...	Giulietta
Gino Cavalieri	...	Don Rusetto
Piero Bortoluzzi	...	Memo Longobardi
Irma Veithen	...	L'infirmière
Milly Corinaldi	...	Giustina
Giovanni Michelagnoli	...	Dr. Fano
Armando Marra
Eolo Capritti
Maria Pia Colonnello
Edgardo Fugagnoli
Luciano Gasper

Also Known As:

The Key

Runtime:

116 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:VM14 (re-rated) | Argentina:18 | Australia:R | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Italy:VM18 | Norway:18 | UK:18

Filming Locations:

Venice, Veneto, Italy

Company:

International Video Service

Quotes:

Nino Rolfe: [while his wife sleeps] When did you ever give me this flesh that sets my prick on fire?

Movie Connections:

Edited into Bellissimo: Immagini del cinema italiano (1985)

Good film, bad DVD transfer

As usual with Brass, this is a very classy sex film, with Hollywood-class production values. (This, I might add, is a rare exception, not the rule, among other sex-film makers. Radley Metzger is the only other director I can think of offhand whose sex films invariably have great production values.). Stefania Sandrelli is an absolutely stunning woman, with a gorgeously filled-out body, unlike the skinny-jinnies that many other directors are fond of. The film is set in Venice in 1940 and the locales are beautiful, while at the same time focusing on a "native's Venice," rather than the few over-photographed canals and churches one generally sees.

But the people who did the U.S. version DVD are incompetents, unfortunately. This is only the second DVD that I have watched where the brightness/contrast were so badly mangled in making the transfer that the film is unwatchable until one moves his controls way off their ISF-calibrated positions. To be precise, it is the second-worst. The worst has been the total butchering of Antonioni's "La Notte", where even moving the controls to their limit cannot produce a decent picture.