Innocents with Dirty Hands
| Innocents with Dirty Hands | |
|---|---|
 Film poster | |
| Directed by | Claude Chabrol |
| Produced by | André Génovès |
| Written by | Claude Chabrol |
| Based on | The Damned Innocents by Richard Neely |
| Starring |
Romy Schneider Rod Steiger |
| Music by | Pierre Jansen |
| Cinematography | Jean Rabier |
| Edited by | Jacques Gaillard |
Production company |
Jupiter Generale Cinematografica Les Films de la Boétie Terra-Filmkunst |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates |
26 March 1975 (France) 3 November 1976 (USA) |
Running time | 121 minutes |
| Country |
France Italy West Germany |
Innocents with Dirty Hands aka Dirty Hands. is a 1975 film written and directed by Claude Chabrol. Its title in French is Les innocents aux mains sales. The film was based on the novel The Damned Innocents by Richard Neely. The film had 553,910 admissions in France.[1]
Plot
Louis, a rich man who lives quietly with his beautiful young wife Julie at St Tropez, has a cardiac problem and an alcohol problem. She sleeps in another room and when she meets Jeff, a writer, starts an affair with him. The two decide that she will kill her husband and that Jeff, after dumping the body off a boat, will then lie low in Italy. To her dismay, Jeff disappears and with him all Louis' money. She is left without husband, lover or assets, under police surveillance. Then Louis reappears, alive, fit, alcohol-free and ready to forgive her …..
Principal cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Romy Schneider | Julie Wormser |
| Rod Steiger | Louis Wormser |
| Jean Rochefort | Maître Albert Légal |
| François Maistre | Commissaire Lamy |
| Hans Christian Blech | Le juge |
| François Perrot | Georges Thorent |
| Paolo Giusti | Jeff Marle |
| Henri Attal | Police Officer #1 |
| Dominique Zardi | Police Officer #2 |
Critical reception
Vincent Canby of The New York Times did not care for the film:
| “ | The peculiar state in which its American distributor has seen fit to release Claude Chabrol's Dirty Hands in New York prompts me to wonder whether I should review it or search for its pulse.... When you watch Romy calmly (and idiotically, if you know your crime stories) bludgeon her husband's blanketed form in the bed, without checking to see if he's actually in the bed, you may correctly suspect that Mr. Chabrol is having an off-day and probably an off-picture.... I have no idea how much the English dubbing and editing have damaged the original, but the Dirty Hands that opened yesterday at the Forum and other theaters is a junk movie.[2] | ” |
References
- ↑ JP (1975-03-26). "Les Innocents aux mains sales (1975)". JPBox-Office. Retrieved 2011-08-25.
- ↑ Original New York Times review (subscription required)