christopher-underwood This is a most accomplished and underrated film from Tinto Brass. There are several reasons why the very mention of the director's name will cause many to stop reading right now. His association with Caligula and Salon Kitty and of course his later joyfully, and uncompromisingly erotic later works do not suggest this might be a 'serious' film maker. However, for me, the most difficult aspect was coming to terms with the fact that this has been transposed from the writer, Junichiro Tanizaki's Japanese homeland to a wintry Venice. The whole notion of a couple each keeping a sexual diary (locked up but knowingly made available) as a way of communicating their hopes and desires is so not the way we consider Italians likely to behave. But, never mind, the film is great enough to overcome this and in no time I was under the spell of the beautiful and prestigious actress, Stefania Sandrelli and to a lesser extent by Frank Finlay. I should also clarify the point that this fairly explicit film is about eroticism and not in the main erotic itself. Mr Brass does, of course, indulge himself quite a few lingering shots of certain parts of Sandrelli's anatomy but I'm sure nobody would grudge him that, certainly not I.

vyto34 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.

russ-112 This DVD had been calling out to me from the cult section of my local video store for about two months before I rented it. The cover art of Stefania projects an allure that is only the begining of a very profound experience. Brass manages to create a film that doesn't make some epic statement of love, society and relationships. Instead he presents a rather odd and erotic situation that makes you think and feel (in various ways) the gravity of the characters situations. The film is also not afraid to come accross as a little silly at times.Don't be mistaken, this is first and foremost and erotic movie, but it manages something masterful in that genre. Tinto Brass has constructed a very nice platform for sensual expression in this film. I wouldn't advise seeing it with your local bible study group, but it isn't frat boy tissue party material either. If you are open to nudity and sensuality this could be just the movie to share with your partner on a night alone together. The sets and the actors are well done, but you still get to see plenty of sex. Tinto's Key is the perfect movie to potentially unlock those who are "one the fence" when it comes to erotic cinema.

Guy Grand A main female character sums up this pile of narrative nonsense at the conclusion of the film saying something like, "I was faithful by being unfaithful." Meaning she was compliant in her husband's wishes for her to link up with their son-in-law so her horny husband could become sexually excited by watching her, thus sparking their marriage alive again. Set against Mussolini's rise to power in 1940s Italy, I suppose auteur Tinto Brass is trying to make some haughty comment on how the Italian populace of the time, repressed by Catholic guilt, succumbed to Il Duce's desire for them to fall faithfully in line with Italian pride and become unfaithful from the moral direction of the Church. Who knows really, because Brass is more concerned with Stefania Sandrelli's derriere than he is about political/spiritual ambivalence.Alas, Mr. Brass' focus on lead actress Sandrelli's bottom is the only theme you're bound to come away with after viewing an hour and 50 minutes of this soft-core cornfest. British thesp Frank Finlay takes a leap at a starring role by heading south to Italy and being forced to look every bit the dirty old man under the meticulous kink direction by Brass. As the premature, if you will, hubby in this standard menage a trois, he can only last a matter of seconds in the sack with his much younger wife, played by the suitably stunning Sandrelli. It is only when he becomes jealous over his wife's attentions to his son-in-law, played with robot-amateur woodenness by Franco Branciaroli, that Finlay becomes excited enough to maintain another kind of woodenness. By drugging his wife into a fitful slumber and picture-posing her in various open positions for photo-ops, Frank cements our disgusted feeling that we are somehow watching the actual sad home life of the Italian Pinto, Tinto.While nowhere near as decadent as "Caligula," "La Chiave" has that movie's ability to make you want to take a cleansing shower afterwards to wash its depressing, sleazy drivel off your conscience. Once we learn the designs of Finlay's ho-hum plan, in the first 20 minutes, all we're left with is countless meandering soft-focus shots of Sandrelli and Branciaroli strolling around Venice, fornicating in their hideaway lair, and Finlay foppishly sniffing after her like a pheremone-obsessed hounddog.The fast-forward button won't help you on this one. You'll be woefully buzzing through a flick that has no worthwhile stopping point. My rating: 0 out of ****.