The Corruption of Chris Miller (1973)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I hate mimes, so I found the start of this film more disturbing when a guy dressed as Charlie Chaplin murders a nagging woman in a house, then continues to act like the silent film actor afterwards while moving the body, before inexplicably unmasking and running off into the night. The stuff of nightmares indeed.This killer is terrorizing the local countryside inhabited by neurotic girl Chris Miller, who gets really upset every time it rains, and her stepmother Ruth. Both seem to be waiting for Chris's dad to return home, and seemingly spend their days languishing around the place, arguing and what not. Chris especially seems to get really upset at night, having flashbacks to a ballet class (with a weightlifter nearby) and then stabbing the nearest object she can find. Ruth does her best to calm Chris, even if her methods seem a little too familiar...One day, annoying hippy drifter Baz or whatever turns up, giving Ruth a full frontal in the barn and then generally trying to charm the pants of her...which works! Chris at first seems a little jealous of this set up, but then when Ruth actively encourages Baz to put the moves on Chris, things don't quite add up and not everyone is as innocent as they appear to be...but is one of them the murderer, who has just carved up five people in one house with a scythe?For a film with three main characters and not a whole lot of side characters to last almost two hours is a bit of an endurance test. There's almost an hour between the first murder and the slaughter of the family, and in between there we get to see the tension between Chris and her stepmother, the hippy guy making eggs, playing acoustic guitar, and bedding Ruth, and find out exactly what happened to Chris's dad and why Ruth seems determined to 'corrupt' Chris. It even goes some way to explain why Ruth lives in a place where it rains so much even though Chris goes nuts every time it does. But come on... At least there's a few mental things that happen later to keep you awake, like a brutal knife murder and a corpse being found due to peas growing from the body and cracking tarmac (and if you've grown peas, you'll know the plants can barely stand up on their own, never mind cracking tarmac!). This is a bit of an obscure one, and for those with plenty of patience. Of course, the bad copy I watched didn't help, as it rendered quite a lot of the dark scenes unwatchable.

The Spanish board of censorship certainly ruined the infinite possibilities of this film. Just think of what it would have looked like if it had been made in Italy, France or Germany, or even in Spain once democracy was restored and censorship abolished: the lesbian pseudo-relationship between Ruth and Chris, the wild eroticism exuded by Barney, the hot scenes with the guy seducing both women by turns, and the gore of the serial killings in the background. Director J.A.Bardem had no choice but to keep the sex and gory elements within the limits imposed by the censors, and that is the reason why this film looks so tame and decaffeinated. Still, it manages to look interesting and keeps a decent degree of suspense. I first saw it when I was 12 or 13, and the multiple murder sequence scared the s*** out of me: the thunderstorm night, the lonely farmhouse, the killer in a black hooded raincoat, the ominous music... Seeing it now in my 40s it looks anything but scary, but when you are a kid... I now was able to watch the English-speaking version, which has a different ending than the Spanish version, and the film sounds a lot better. In the Spanish version the dubbing of Jean Seberg and Barry Stokes is lame, while in the English version the Spanish actress Marisol speaks her lines in perfect English with her real voice, no dubbing involved. Great settings, locations, camera-work, music and an interesting story. Like I said before: if only Bardem had had complete freedom to exploit the story's full potential... A real shame. That is why I am giving it only 7 points.

"La corrupción de Chris Miller" is a difficult film to write about. It tells a story that has many layers. There's the straight story the film tells and there are many undercurrents that are left for the viewer to discern.Ruth (Jean Seberg) lives with her stepdaughter Chris (Marisol) in an isolated mansion in the countryside. Both of them wait for the same man. He was Ruth's husband and the father of Chris. One day, without warning, he left everything. They don't know where he's at. But Ruth and Chris have different feelings about him. Ruth wants to get even with him for what he has done to her, and for doing this she can use Chris, his daughter. Maybe she can corrupt her. But corruption is a vague word, what does it really mean? And Chris waits for her father as if he were the last hope left for her. A traumatic experience she had, has left its mark on her. Maybe her father is the only good thing left in the world...But it's difficult to classify the relationship between the two women. It's not a traditional love-hate relationship. The same man links them, but there's much more than that.Meanwhile a serial killer roams about the countryside. Mysterious murders are happening in the area.One day a drifter, come from nowhere, arrives in the house. As it happens, he (Barney) is engaged to work in the house for doing the odd jobs. His presence will change everything. Slowly a strange kind of threesome is developed - an atmosphere of suspicion, perplexity ... begins to grow. Who is he? What does he want from them? What do they want from him? Ruth and Chris and Barney? Outside, the murders go on happening.I won't say more because I don't want to spoil the film for you. "La corrupción de Chris Miller" is a refined psychological thriller. Jean Seberg is very good as Ruth, and Marisol's interpretation of Chris is powerful and emotional.If you like this one, check out also "El ojo del huracán" (In the eye of the hurricane) - it's seemingly a lighter type of thriller, but don't let yourself get fooled, because under the sun there is light and there are also shadows.

According to David Richards' biography of Jean Seberg, she did this film because she needed the money. Well, it's obvious she didn't do it for the script of this convoluted Spanish thriller.Seberg plays Ruth Miller, a fashion designer, spending the summer in Spain with her stepdaughter Chris, played by the former Spanish child star Marisol. Ruth and Chris do not get along particularly well. Ruth wants to get revenge on her husband, who abandoned Ruth and Chris a year earlier, by corrupting his daughter - hence the film's title. Chris has also just returned from a Swiss hospital where she received psychological treatment after being raped while taking a shower. These memories are triggered whenever it rains and she lashes out at anyone near her. It rains a lot in this movie. Into this situation comes a young English drifter, Barney, played by Barry Stokes. Ruth takes him in but he ends up falling for Chris. This causes even more tension between the two women. In the meantime, a series of brutal murders have occurred in the surrounding countryside. All indications point to Barney as the murderer. Ruth and Chris seem to think so and they stab him to death in a particularly graphic and protracted scene complete with slow-motion photography. Realizing their mistake when the real murderer is arrested the next day, they bury his body in the path of a road being built. I won't identify the real murderer except to say that the ending is completely arbitrary. The final scene of the film with Ruth and Chris chatting intimately by the pool is quite bizarre - I'm not exactly sure what is really happening there.As usual with her later work, this film is of note only for the presence of Jean Seberg. The direction and photography are routine although some flashback scenes are well handled. The score does contribute to the mood of the film. Among the performers, Barry Stokes is very effective, Marisol is quite acceptable and Jean Seberg simply seems embarrassed by the whole thing. She is never really convincing and seems particularly uncomfortable with the less than subtle implication of a lesbian relationship between Ruth and Chris.This film shares a strange number of plot points with the earlier British film "The Night Digger": both feature an unhappy relationship between a stepmother and stepdaughter, a young drifter who enters into this relationship and victims being buried in the path of a new road. Just a coincidence?