The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh

A maniac is killing women with a straight razor in Vienna, creating a climate of fear. Julie Wardh and her diplomat husband Neil return to the city after time in New York, pulling their fragile dynamic back into the spotlight.

Julie explains that her past with Jean was a dangerous, abusive affair from which she escaped by marrying Neil. The backstory establishes why Jean remains a looming threat to her and motivates her actions.

On her first night back, Julie receives a bouquet with a sinister note from Jean, hinting at their troubled past. The gesture foreshadows trouble brewing beneath Vienna's glamorous surface.

At a lavish party, Julie is drawn to George, Carol's Australian cousin, while Jean reappears nearby and implies he controls her. Neil angrily slaps Jean, who simply laughs and leaves, showing Jean's defiant hold over Julie.

After a lunch date arranged by Carol, Julie and George begin an affair despite Julie's misgivings. The affair complicates her marriage and widens the web of deceit surrounding her.

An anonymous caller demands 20,000 schillings to keep silent about the affair. Carol goes to meet the unknown blackmailer in Schönbrunn Palace Park and is murdered by a straight razor-wielding attacker.

Julie urges the police to investigate Jean, but he has an airtight alibi, preventing a quick solution. The trail grows colder as suspicion shifts among other potential players.

Julie is attacked in the parking garage of her apartment building by a figure armed with a straight razor. She fights and escapes, but the danger is far from over.

Neil and Julie confront Jean at his residence and find his body in a bloody bathtub, turning the case toward a new, more complicated suspect. The discovery intensifies the sense that multiple plots are intersecting around Julie.

Fearing for her safety in Vienna, Julie secretly leaves for Spain with George. The relocation shifts the center of danger while leaving unresolved trails behind.

Back in Vienna, one of the razor killer's intended victims kills the killer in self defense, ending the immediate threat. Julie is later stalked in Spain, and a note signed 'Jean' torments her, deepening her paranoia.

Jean reappears and ambushes Julie in the kitchen, staging a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The danger escalates until she is rescued and the truth starts to surface.

The police announce Julie's death as a suicide, while Neil and George admit to conspiring to murder Carol and Julie. In a climactic sequence, George shoots Jean and fakes his death, and the pair drive off a remote cliff to their deaths; Julie is later revealed to have survived thanks to the doctor's intervention and a police ruse intended to trap the conspirators.