The Sensuous Assassin (1970)

Truly Dreadful Film

Strictly average movie

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Saw this 7/6/15 on YouTube. Should have been titled, "Why?" as in "Why Make This Film?" Beautiful print, very clear. Stupid "heavy"-sounding American-style pop song played over and over on Ronet's Garrard hi-fi turntable – didn't he own any other records? Story, what little of it I could follow (and even less was worth following), was boring by reel 2. For a long time in this shortish movie little seemed to happen. The Ronet character, perhaps because the writers ran out of ideas after the opening credits, kept asking poor Romy why she killed her boyfriend, the brother of the Ronet character. Then back to the turntable with additional repetition of the title of the movie in English – "Who are you...?" OK – who am I? Someone who just watched a bad movie! Romy and Ronet were much better splashing around in La Piscine (1969). The ending was a real "twist"! Doesn't everyone have a double? Without subtitles I got at least 50% of the dialogue, and I doubt that I really missed all that much.

Thematically, "Qui?" could be classified as "in the Claude Chabrol vein": a fatal accident, a man dies, a woman survives, she feels that someone is watching her, so she goes to stay with the dead man's brother, they start an affair, etc. But was it really an accident? Did the woman have any responsibility for what happened? Did the man really die? Is his brother genuinely seduced by her, or is he just obsessively trying to find out the truth? Compared to Chabrol, Leonard Keigel has a faster and more gimmicky style: he does a good job of creating a sense of paranoia and uncertainty. Ultimately, his story is too contrived (SPOILER: what are the chances of another corpse of the same age, height, hair color, clothing, etc., who has spent about the same time in the water, washing up at the right time and the right place? END SPOILER) for "Qui?" to be anything more than a minor thriller, however it's still worth seeing, especially for Romy Schneider fans: she is truly hot in this movie. The virtually unknown Simone Bach, as Ronet's ex-wife, is simply adorable. **1/2 out of 4.

One of Ms. Schneider's early works where she was trying to shake off the 'Sissi'-Image. Here we can see her (great as usual) as the somewhat troubled girlfriend of a man probably killed in a car crash as she tries to support his brother finding out what really happened. But strange things begin to happen and she feels like being hunted by a ghost.The really good cast down to the supporting roles combined with the great and very suspenseful direction, a really good 60s score and the original and atmospheric script make a French thriller (actually, it's a French-Italian co-production) more interesting than lot of its counterparts from Hollywood. OK, the script tries sometimes a little bit too heavy to create a sense of overwhelming doom or anxiety surrounding Ms. Schneider's character (in her presence and in the things happening to her), on the other hand that low-key suspense is what makes the movie so effective. The main part seems to be just written for Ms. Schneider as she as usual does such a splendid job.Any admirer of Ms. Schneider's talent shouldn't miss this movie. And any admirer of good (60s/70s) thrillers shouldn't miss this rare movie, either! I think it should really get a release on DVD. The score by none other than Claude Bolling would along with the songs be also great to have on CD.

Frankly I doubt Schneider herself said that this movie "set the tone for her future roles".If such was the case,what a poor taste she used to have.Actually,it was rather "la piscine" made the year before,that boosted her career that was on the wane after the Sissi saga (forever my love).Romy Schneider teamed up again with Maurice Ronet (who was in "la piscine" too),but this time with laughable results.Leonard Keigel,the director ,wrote a screenplay in which the paucity of the ideas is so glaring that only a member of the audience who has never seen a Hitch ,Chabrol ou Clouzot movie could enjoy this poor would - be suspense thriller.Keigel hired Chabrol's dialogue writer,Paul Guégauff:probably horrified by the emptiness of the story,he made up for it with a lot of swear-words.I wonder why talented actors like Ronet and Schneider agreed to make such a bomb;besides,the supporting actors do not "support" at all:Keigel's wife ,Simone Bach and Gabriele Tinti,sink into utterly ridiculous ham. The songs ,in English ("who are you" ) sung by a Dutch band ,Wallace Collection ,would nicely fit in a commercial for Martini.The critical reception was so disagreeable in France at the time ("a film made of brics,bracs and thingummies") that Keigel was not to made another movie before 1977.And it was his last one.