sbasu-47-608737 Let me leave aside the glamour coefficient of Romy, which was in large measures in this movie, she looked glamorous even in a prim suit here, and it was no wonder that every one was making a pass on her, from the judge, to the defense lawyer to her husband's best friend, and becoming her mortal enemy when she rebuffed them and that is the basic crux of the story. This is a story more into study of human sexuality, or rather a man's and as pointedly told in the end "It's a man's world, where all the law's are made by man" The main two character around whom the story revolves are the spouses Wormser (Romy and Steiger) and their problem is the lack of physical relationship due to the husband's health, first we are made to belief it was his heart problem, and later told that he was impotent, it was one of those, or something else, wouldn't be divulged till the end.Anyway lack of physical relationship (for couple of years by then), the young and glamorous wife falls in the arm of a young pulp-fiction-writer, and they plan to murder the wealthy husband, frame it as an accident, and then legally walk off with the money. From there the crossing and double crossing starts between not only the three main figures (husband wife and lover), but a few others too. The police suspects, but without the corpus delicti, and also the prime suspect (lover) supposed to be dead in and accident the case falls flat, and the widow is acquitted, despite police rightly suspecting her. Nothing out of the ordinary in the deduction process, may be a bit Sherlock-ian, but the evidences for deductions were all there, even to audience, to come to the conclusion the detectives (or rather one) did. As some have pointed out, there had been twists and turns, including resurrection, but that didn't create too much of aberration, and rather brought the story to a some-what predictable end, without surprises. By surprise I mean, creating situations to force the end, here everything fell naturally without manipulation, even the end.The characters of the men, all swarming around the glamorous young woman were all well portrayed, even their 'male' mind-set was clear by the epithets they used for her, especially considering that she was a deprived woman than a depraved woman. But ce'st la vie, don't we still look at most with that eyes? The crime graph would show that it is really a man's world. If a woman resists, either she is subjugated or termed as bitch or even worse.This deprivation could have serious implications too, and that is again natural. Here, her all internal feelings remained in, the ember was covered in the thick ash courtesy the physical needs and could come out when the ash was rudely shaken.

MartinHafer 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.

austrianmoviebuff They both longed to work with each other for many years, but when it finally happened in 1974, Romy Schneider and Claude Chabrol failed miserably. "Les innocents aux mains sales" is a low point of both their careers, a slow-moving and unconvincing film that meanders somewhere between crime story, sex drama, baroque thriller and social study."Les innocents…" pairs Schneider and Rod Steiger as Julie and Louis Wormser, a rich couple living in a grandiose villa in the Southern part of France. Louis is very rich and about twenty years older than his wife who is disgusted by his alcoholism and rude manners. One day, Julie meets Jeff Marle (hunky Paolo Giusti), a writer and neighbor who flies kites and shows eminent sexual interest in her. Together, they plan to drown Louis and run away with the inherited money. Of course, something goes wrong, and a supposedly dead Rod Steiger suddenly stands on the doorstep again, ready to take revenge…Schneider solidly acts her way through the 125 minutes of Chabrol's mystery, and certainly she's prettier than ever, but you don't get to see the passionate performer that made films like "L'important c'est d'aimer" or "Les chose de la vie" so unforgettable. As a matter of fact, Romy seems obviously bored and out of place, and she doesn't watch with either Steiger or Giusti. She later declared that she and Chabrol just didn't get along together: "He just sat there playing chess while the cameraman and we tried to make this picture. He left me alone, something I cannot bear. I need either a challenge, like with Welles, Visconti, or Zulawski, or cooperation, like with Sautet.""Les innocents…" does have its moments of greatness, but all in all, it remains an unsatisfying experience.

adverts Well done thriller - I won't add to the other comments save this -- just so you know -- Rod Steiger and Romy Schneider were filmed speaking in English while all other characters were filmed speaking in French: So, you have two choices (assuming you're either English or French speaking - and not Spanish): Watch the film in French (with or without English subtitles) - but keep in mind Rod Stieger and Romy Schinedier's voices will be DUBBED into French. It is definitely not Steiger speaking French (although I think Romy speaks both languages) Watch it in English - and the voices of the all other (French) actors (except Steiger and Schneider) will be DUBBED into English.Didn't bother me tooo much...but I'm a Steiger fan - so I needed to hear him speak in his native tongue.