Review of Innocents with Dirty Hands (1975) by Stephen M — 27 Oct 2008

A beautiful woman (Romy Schneider) and her lover hatch a plot to murder her rich, impotent, alcoholic husband (Rod Steger). Things seem to be going to plan until both husband and lover fail to return from the pre-arranged 'boating accident', and the woman finds herself the unwanted focus of two missing person investigations.

Hmmm... I can't think of very much to say about this. After a clumsy start, things improve immensely once the police start sniffing around and asking awkward questions of Schneider, who at this stage is just as mystified as we are.

Unfortunately, Chabrol tries our patience with a succession of ludicrous plot twists in the second half and the movie outstays its welcome. Schneider is superb and Jean Rochefort turns in a very droll performance as her crafty lawyer.

Rod Steiger is fine but his dubbed voice is very distracting; he's probably better in the English language version, where there ought to be a closer correlation between his dialogue and the shapes his lips are making.