Innocents with Dirty Hands (1975)

☆ ☆ ☆

Innocents with Dirty Hands (1975) – C. Chabrol

I’ve only recently delved into Chabrol’s thrillers (after dipping my toe in the water with his first nouvelle vague films (Le Beau Serge, Les Cousins) – and there are some excellent suspenseful movies from which to choose (basically any of the six films between Les Biches in 1968 and Just Before Nightfall in 1971).  As with Hitchcock before him (and Chabrol wrote a famous book about the Master of Suspense along with Eric Rohmer), Chabrol deals with issues of guilt and moral complicity with a wry sense of humor.  However, I found this international production (starring Romy Schneider and Rod Steiger) left me a bit cold.  They are married but she takes a younger lover and they plot to kill him.  But things don’t go right and both of the men end up dead with Schneider then the prime suspect for the police (who are played rather comically).  As the plot unravels there are a few twists and turns but somehow I never quite cared about Schneider or Steiger enough to feel suspense about their fates.  I’m not sure whether this is the fault of the acting, the English-dubbed version I watched, the script, or Chabrol.  Start somewhere else with his oeuvre.