Taglines: The killer or khe crime?
The Champagne Murders movie storyline. Taking a prostitute to a park after drinking, Paul Wagner is attacked by unknown assailants, who leave him with a serious head injury and strangle her. Unable to manage the family champagne business, it is run for him by Christine Belling and her assistant Jacqueline. Christine tries to take advantage of Paul by selling the company, but he refuses to sign.
On a business trip to Hamburg with Christine’s husband Christopher (Perkins), he gets drunk and goes to a park with a prostitute, who is found strangled in the morning. Going with Christopher to the party of a promiscuous artist, Paul again gets drunk and she is found strangled in the morning.
Terrified that he may be murdering young women after drinking, Paul seeks the help of Christine while Christopher is away. She takes advantage of Paul by getting him to sign away his rights in the company. He goes home despondent and in the morning Christine is found strangled. Christopher, who now owns the business, turns up with a striking blonde, whom Paul remembers seeing in Hamburg and at the artist’s party. It is Jacqueline, without the dark wig and pale make-up she wore to work, who is Christopher’s mistress and has done the last three stranglings. A gun is pulled out and the movie camera recedes as the three fight over the gun.
The Champagne Murders (French: Le Scandale) is a 1967 French suspense thriller mystery film based on a story William Benjamin, directed by Claude Chabrol and starring Anthony Perkins. It was the first of two films that Chabrol made with Perkins, who is most famous for his role in Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, whom Chabrol admires above all other directors. For his role in the film, Maurice Ronet won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
The Champagne Murders was Chabrol’s first film with English-speaking actors. He filmed each scene in both English and French; much of the English dialogue was mouthed phonetically by the French actors and later dubbed in English. The film was shot in Techniscope format.
The film was not released on VHS or DVD in the U.S. In July 2019, Kino Lorber issued a Blu-ray release containing the 98-minute English-language version rather than the 105-minute French-language version.
The Champagne Murders (1967)
Directed by: Claude Chabrol
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Maurice Ronet, Yvonne Furneaux, Stéphane Audran, Annie Vidal, Henry Jones, Catherine Sola, George Skaff, Christa Lang, Marie-Ange Aniès, Suzanne Lloyd
Screenplay by: William Benjamin, Claude Brulé, Derek Prouse, Paul Gégauff
Production Design by: Pierre Cottance, Fred Surin
Cinematography by: Jean Rabier
Film Editing by: Jacques Gaillard
Costume Design by: Maurice Albray
Art Direction by: Rino Mondellini
Makeup Department: Anatole Paris
Music by: Pierre Jansen
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: March 31, 1967 (France)
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