Who payed the critics

Disturbing yet enthralling

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The opportunity to see Romy Schneider naked in the grass already justifies itself to watch this movie directed by Claude Chabrol,I never liked those European movies called Nouvelle Vague...whose the director came from...but this kind of suspense is amazing a true Hitchcock's movie....the plot is usual the pretty young woman married with a rich old man finds a lover,the result is predicable....but Chabrol provides some surprises along the story...the cast is fine as Rod Steiger and Jean Rochefort,but no one exceed Romy she is sexy than never and desirable....valuable movie settled in Saint Tropez.

In Saint Tropez, Julie Wormser (Romy Schneider) is a beautiful and sexy young woman married with the wealthy retired businessman Louis Wormser (Rod Steiger), who is eighteen years old older than she and infatuated on her. Louis is impotent since he has had a heart attack and alcoholic and drinking too much. When Julie meets her handsome neighbor Jeff Marle (Paolo Giusti), a mediocre writer that likes to fly kite, they have a love affair. They plot the assassination of Louis and build an alibi for Jeff. During the night, Julie hits Louis head with a cudgel while he is sleeping, and Jeff takes his body to his yacht to dump into the sea. Then he travels to Italy in Julie's Datsun to have an alibi. On the next morning, Julie reports to the police that Louis is missing and Inspectors Villon (Pierre Santini) and Lamy (François Maistre) of Paris assume the investigation. Sooner the police finds the yacht anchored offshore and the Datsun crashed on a cliff, but neither the body of Louis nor the body of Jeff. Further, they find that the Louis bank account and safe are empty and Julie becomes the prime suspect of murder. "Les Innocents aux Mains Sales" a.k.a. "Innocents with Dirty Hands" is a great film-noir with many twists, maybe more than the necessary. Directed by Claude Chabrol, the mystery in the original screenplay recalls a Hitchcock film or an Agatha Christie's novel, and nothing is what seems to be. The femme fatale Romy Schneider is astonishingly beautiful and the introduction with her naked on the grass in breathtaking. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Assassinato por Amor" ("Assassination for Love")

"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.

Claude Chabrol's Les Innocents aux Mains Sale sometimes runs the risk over becoming very, very slow-paced. Particularly the scene in the judge's office in which Julie's attorney cunningly pleads for her innocence is way, way too long. A little less dialogue, and a little more suspense would have helped this film, although it is really not bad.But... The major attraction in this film is not the story, which, I must say, does have some highly unexpected twists and does indeed show Chabrol's creative skills and pleasure in directing. The star of Les Innocents is no one less than the wonderful Romy Schneider, whose acting performance, charm and beauty in this film are more stunning than ever before. I am very happy that Chabrol has chosen her character as the central one, for now we can admire gracious Scheider in almost every scene. I have the impression the camera man was in love with her, and who can blame him. Romy even looks amazing in the scene where she is putting curlers in her hair. She is the perfect cast for this complicated Femme Fatale role.Although mainly the mediteranean filming locations in combination with the outstanding weather are to be credited for providing this Film Noir with a deceptively pleasant yellow, warm glow, it is Romy Scheider's radiance and talent that make Les Innocents aux Mains Sales a joy to watch.