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Crime and Passion
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Wikipedia article
'Crime and Passion', also known as 'Ace Up My Sleeve', is a 1976 comedy drama film.Ebert, Roger (May 4, 1976). [http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/crime-and-passion-1976 'Crime and Passion'.] RogerEbert.com.
Plot
Andr Ferren learns from his girlfriend and co-worker Susan Winters that the biggest client of his brokerage firm, Hermann Rolf, not only wants to replace Andr with Susan, but asked Susan on a date. Andr orders Susan to go on the date and Rolf asks Susan to marry him. Susan agrees on the condition that Rolf entrust his fortune to Andr as a gift. Weeks later, Rolf and Susan are married at Rolf's castle in the Swiss Alps. Andr assures Susan that he will create a financial scandal that will ruin Rolf and she can divorce him.
Andr is then accused by the top executives at the brokerage firm of stealing $2.5 million from Rolf's account. He is given ten days to return the money or go to prison. Andr drives to a ski resort where Susan is having an affair with Larry, a ski instructor. Andr explains to Susan that he is being framed. A skier attempts to murder Andr with a ski pole, but Andr falls and the other skier dies instead. That night, Susan informs Andr that they cannot be seen together or Rolf will divorce her, and explains that Rolf murdered all his ex-wives.
Andr survives several more attempts on his life as he follows Susan and Larry to Rolf's castle, including an episode at a village inn where a woman attempts to strangle him. Eventually Andr sneaks into the castle, where he is imprisoned by a sword-wielding Larry. Susan asks Larry to drive her Maserati Indy to Switzerland and deliver a letter to a banker. In the process of doing so, he passes Rolf's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, and Rolf's manservant Henkel shoots, causing the Maserati to explode. Susan shoots a man in a suit of armor attempting to stab Andr through the cell bars; lifting the visor reveals the face of the innkeeper. Susan then begins noticing hidden surveillance cameras throughout the castle as Rolf sends Henkel on foot to kill Andr. Susan tells Rolf through one of the cameras that her feelings have changed. She then tells Andr to make love to her and smashes the camera, bringing a tear to Rolf's eye as he watches surveillance footage from inside the Rolls-Royce. Henkel locks the castle gates and hides in a mortar, but is shot out of it when Susan pulls the lanyard. Rolf gets drunk, falls down a ravine and walks through the snow.
The next morning, Susan and Andr lie in bed and realize that Rolf had set them both up in a scheme to murder them. Meanwhile, Rolf has frozen to death standing up.
Cast
* Omar Sharif as Andr Ferren
* Karen Black as Susan Winters
* Joseph Bottoms as Larry
* Bernhard Wicki as Hermann Rolf
* Heinz Ehrenfreund as Henkel
* Elma Karlowa as Masseuse
* Volker Prechtel as Gastwirt
* Erich Padalewski as Autoverkufer
* Robert L. Abrams as Mr. Blatt
* Franz Muxeneder as Priester
* Margarete Soper as Sylvia
Reception
Roger Ebert of the 'Chicago Sun-Times' gave the film two stars out of four and called it "not only one of the silliest films ever made but one of the most inexplicable." Vincent Canby of 'The New York Times' called it "a grossly disoriented and disorienting shaggy-dog of a movie that seems to have no point, and no point of view, whatever ... What it's meant to be, I cannot tell. A comedy, melodrama, spoof?"Canby, Vincent (April 22, 1976). "Film: Crime and Passion". 'The New York Times'. 37. Gene Siskel of the 'Chicago Tribune' gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and called it a "European quickie production" with "an absurd script."Siskel, Gene (May 5, 1976). "Six films with no Oscar hopesor much of anything else". 'Chicago Tribune'. Section 4, p. 4. Arthur D. Murphy of 'Variety' called it "a vulgar little embarrassment" made up of "the untidy combination of self-conscious comedy relief, serious melodrama and indecisive planning that used to be called 'camp' a few years ago ... intercut with sequences of embarrassing non-eroticism made even worse by sophomoric treatment."Murphy, Arthur D. (February 25, 1976). "Crime And Passion". 'Variety'. 22.
References
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