Innocents with Dirty Hands (1975)

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

"Les Innocents" was released at a time when Chabrol's career was slowly but inexorably slipping..Among a handful of horrors ("nada" "Les Magiciens" and the nadir "Folies Bourgeoises" ),before Chabrol regained his mastery with his underrated "Alice Ou La Dernière Fugue" or "Violette Nozières" ,but only for a while.Except for the 1968-1971 period or his debut,Chabrol's career has been erratic ,mainly because he has made too many films ."Les Innocents" inaugurated a new genre for Chabrol,which actually began with "Docteur Popaul": a tongue-in-cheek thriller ,it paved a reliable way for such works as "Inspecteur Lavardin" "Masques" "Poulet Au Vinaigre" or "Rien Ne Va Plus" .None of these works were major works but some of them (particularly "Masques" ) are pleasant enough.A foreign viewer may take this story seriously ,compare it with Bresson (!) but a French one cannot be fooled.Chabrol actually laughs at the audience as he laughs at Julie: although a criminal,Julie almost appears as a victim....of men of course as Lawyer Mr Legal (what a name!) says .We come to pity Julie (the scene in the bank where she learns that all the money she has left is 92 francs is priceless)and her character sometimes resembles that of Stephane Audran in "la Rupture " ,this great 1970 work.With its spate of "unexpected " twists ,"Les Innocents " may seem today ahead of its time.But not only "Alice ou La Derniere Fugue " which had only one (unexpected twist) packed a real wallop -in the grand tradition of "carnival of souls" "Jacob's ladder" and "the sixth sense"-,those of "the innocents do not make sense cause the characters are uninteresting (Do you care for them as you did for the characters of ,say,"le Boucher" or "Que La Bête Meure" ?)and RomySchneider ,one of my favorite actresses ,does not belong in Chabrol's world.Neither does Rod Steiger.Only Mischievous Jean Rochefort and the pair of Colomboesque cops (Pierre Santini and François Maistre who play cat and mouse with Julie)really survive in this hotchpotch.

First, as another reviewer pointed out, the two leads (Romy Schneider and Rod Steiger) do their parts in English and the rest of the cast are speaking French--making it irrelevant whether or not you watch the French-dubbed or English-dubbed version. However, and this is odd, you probably should NOT watch the film with captioning, as the subtitles are inferior to both dubbed versions! I know this makes no sense, but often the subtitles were inaccurate or didn't convey the message as well as the actors originally spoke! I actually watched about half the film in French and then watched the other half in English. But boy were those subtitles annoying--even getting little details wrong.As for the film itself, through the first half of the film, it all seems pretty familiar--especially for a tale directed by Claude Chabrol. He made a career out of films about infidelity and murder. However, midway through the film, the film has many excellent twists and turns. BUT I CANNOT REALLY TALK ABOUT THEM WITHOUT WRITING A FEW SPOILERS, SO BE ADVISED!!! Romy and boy-toy, Jeff, begin a torrid affair as the husband (Steiger) drinks himself to oblivion. Eventually, the lovers come up with a plan to murder Steiger and live off his fortune. Unfortunately for the lovers, the plan goes awry but it isn't certain exactly what happened--all we know is Romy is now being blamed for possibly killing BOTH men, as there isn't much trace of them.When Steiger returns later and is indeed alive, this created a wonderful opportunity for the film, as Romy suddenly found that her formerly impotent husband is very potent indeed and their dead relationship is rejuvenated. This would have been a wonderful point to end the story. In essence, the woman's lover is killed by the impotent man, who, in doing this regains his own power and sexuality--a somewhat kinky but fascinating idea. Unfortunately, while this was where the film was going, the movie had an additional 30 minutes of plot twists that did a lot to confuse everything and make the story much more difficult to believe. It's a great example of a film that didn't know when to stop. Without the next 30 minutes, I'd have scored the movie an 8. With it, the impact is greatly lessened. I strongly agree with the review that saw this film as needlessly complicated--a problem common to many of Chabrol's films.Finally, a note to parents that this isn't a great film for kids due to its sexual nature and nudity. Miss Schneider, at age 37, is quite lovely in her many nude scenes--it's a real shame her life off-screen was so short and tragic.

... is a misdeal. Chabrol does it again. This time the colours tend more toward rich oil than the pastel water he invariably favours but maybe the rich stew of the plot dictated the palette. The basic premise is a mixture of The Postman Always Rings Twice/Double Indemnity and/or any of the rip-offs in which a young, virile wife is saddled with an older and/or sexually dormant husband, finds a young stud and what begins as healthy lust graduates to 'let's murder rich husband and spend his money'. Chabrol merely uses this as a jumping-off point and is soon introducing more twists than a hairpin bend on that very Riviera that forms the setting (St Tropez). The strongest factor is Romy Schneider as the wife and Chabrol has had the good taste to include her in virtually every scene. Rod Steiger as the husband plays Rod Steiger but that isn't necessarily bad but the weakest link is definitely Poalo Giusti, who has to be the most wooden actor since Laurence Harvey, as the stud cum assassin and for good measure Hitchcock buff Chabrol has thrown in a comic couple who clearly had their genesis in Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne in Hitch's The Lady Vanishes but are now transformed into a Greek Chorus of cops. You may not want to see it again for a decade or so but it's diverting enough for a couple of hours.

more important than the carefully analysis of a wife/husband relationship gone sour, with a cunning game between the husband and the wife's lover, is the magnificent depiction of the relationships between a number of characters. The whole bourgeois world that Chabrol so often chastised is here, with unforgettable roles by Romy Schneider, Rod Steiger, and Jean Rochefort. Sum-up: Film's photography is neat; Justice... has got "dirty hands".