Powerful

Memorable, crazy movie

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

This was a movie that French director Claude Chabrol made just before the period considered his golden era in which he knocked out a number of excellent dramatic thrillers. It would only be fair to say that with this one he hadn't quite nailed the formula, as while it has a complex plot, it ultimately doesn't add up to all that much by the end. The story features a young couple who try to convince, Paul Wagner, the mentally unstable owner of a respected champagne business to sell his company to another corporation. Matters are complicated when on a trip to Germany, a girl Wagner meets is murdered while he experiences a blackout, while back in France the same thing happens once again. These events are used as leverage to blackmail him into giving up his company.It's got to be said that this one takes a while to get going. It begins with a scene involving a gang attack, which kind of sits a bit awkwardly in the story, and it is only alluded to later on but left essentially adrift from everything else. After this, we watch some rich types involve themselves in a series of vaguely interesting activities but it is really only once the first murder finally occurs that the story becomes interesting. It sort of gets by after that but you would be hard pushed to say by the end that it was anything too out of the ordinary or inspired. Still, any film that features the incredibly alluring Stéphane Audran gets plus points from me basically from the get-go, and while she does have an admittedly smaller role than she would have in Chabrol's later films, it is an important one. Frankly, Audran was a huge reason that many of the films from Chabrol's golden era were so good and in this instance, even with limited screen-time she is still head and shoulders above everybody else. There was a neat disguise reveal later on which had me fooled and the movie does end on a commendably strange final shot. Ultimately, this is certainly worth a watch if you like Chabrol or Audran, although it is for sure one of their lesser collaborations.

Spoiler alert: this review is all spoilers. But this movie is so bad that I don't think it's possible to spoil it any further. A reviewer who has praised the movie asserts that the Anthony Perkins character, Christopher, is in cahoots with the character, or rather characters, played by Stéphane Audran: Audran is Jacqueline when disguised as Christopher's mousy maid and she is the flashy Lydia when not in disguise. Lydia commits a bunch of murders and tries to pin them on Christopher's friend, the character named Paul who is played by Maurice Ronet. Lydia's plan is to benefit financially from the deaths of her murder victims and then live happily ever after with Christopher (why the beautiful and intelligent, albeit ruthless, Lydia would kill in order to be with a loser like Christopher is beyond my comprehension). But if Christopher is in on Lydia's plan, then the scene where he makes a play for Jacqueline and she rejects him makes no sense. Perhaps he could be in cahoots only with Lydia, not realizing that she is also Jacqueline, but that would mean that all it takes for a woman to deceive Christopher is not much more than her wearing of a wig. Christopher's being in cahoots with Lydia would also mean that he would be delighted when he learns that his wife, Christine, played by Yvonne Furneaux, has been murdered, when in fact he is distraught. The entire movie makes very little sense. With the partial exception of Christine, all the main characters are unprincipled and obnoxious people, so it is difficult to have much sympathy for any of them.

This is not really an early Chabrol who had already been making films for over fifteen years but it does come just before he fully got into his stride and his golden period began with Le Boucher. Fascinating here to see Anthony Perkins with Maurice Ronet and the lovely Stephane Audran, not sure if he knew English or was dubbed but he looks fine. Trouble here is that Chabrol takes forever setting this up and we have to spend what seems an interminable amount of time as the rich are seen to party pathetically with their business transactions forever hovering. Once things do get going there are some great scenes and we struggle to make out who is doing what and for why. Could have done with some of that cinematic style early on but certainly worth a watch for the second half. Apparently referenced in Kill Bill 1 and 2 and I'm guessing that it is the final overhead scene shot in retreating fashion that could Tarantino's eye.

CONTAINS A BIG SPOILER Chabrol's transitional period was coming to an end.Hisgolden era was about to begin,and would culminate two years later with "le boucher".But the transitional period is still here in 1967."Le scandale" is nothing short of rubbish.The first hour is meandering and dragging on and on and on:you're going to tell me it's Claude Chabrol 's usual disgust for the bourgeoisie.It would work the following year in "la femme infidele" when Chabrol began with a fly on the wall account of the daily life of those wealthy people.It does not here .Anthony Perkins and Maurice Ronet are wasted and Yvonne Furneaux is undistinguished.Stephane Audran is here too and with her ,comes my big spoiler :so stop reading now if you have not seen the flick (but haven't you got a better way of spending your time anyway?).Anyone who knows Chabrol's works has seen Audran in a lot of films;and you realize that Jacqueline is a Stephane Audran made look ugly ,and the German hostess is the real sexy Audran.When the movie was made,Audran was hardly known in France and the audience could be fooled.No longer.Chabrol ,in the second part,tried to create suspense and fear ,by suggesting Ronet was going nuts.But it's too late and the ending recalls some of those Joan Crawford extravaganzas ,the likes of "straight jacket" except that you had a good laugh in Castle's movie .Not in Chabrol's dud.Gastronomist Chabrol fills his quota of good food.Here they treat themselves to some delicious kidneys (not hot enough,one of the guests complains.)