"Innocents With Dirty Hands" is a difficult film to critique. Without a proper restoration, the true beauty of southern France doesn't really enhance this mundane 1975 thriller from French film director, Claude Chabrol. The washed-out, drab-looking 2003 DVD from Pathfinder Home Entertainment shows its age: it plays fine but is unlovely to look at. However, the beautiful Austrian actress, Romy Schneider, appears in nearly every scene displaying copious amounts of skin, and even the so-so quality of the DVD doesn't detract from her obvious appeal. 

The plot features Schneider as Julie, the younger trophy-wife of Louis (Rod Steiger), a middle-age rich guy with a whole slew of problems, none the least of which is his fondness for intoxicants. Ensconced in a palatial, modern horror near St. Tropez, Schneider's Julie is bored and horny, spending naked afternoons sunbathing in her back yard while Louis swills booze and staggers around wondering what the heck he's doing in this movie.  Meanwhile, handsome, young neighbor Jeff (Paolo Giusti) flies kites in his own back yard, until one day his kite sails over the fence and lands on Julie's nude behind. Once Jeff pops over to retrieve his kite, one thing leads to another and before you know it, a dastardly plot is set in motion, and all three of the principal actors appear to lose their collective minds (as well as the plot of this film). Somebody is apparently murdered but maybe it's not who we thought it was, and then again, was a murder even committed in the first place? Since the potential murderer didn't even bother to double check the identity of the possible murderee, fortuitously covered from head to toe with a blanket, who the fuck knows? It boils down to a bunch of silly double-crosses that's been done much better by lesser filmmakers, and even TV's Columbo (and, believe you me, the cops in "Dirty Hands" are a far piece from being Columbo's, but we'll get to that). 

Rod Steiger does his best as the boozing, bamboozled cuck but it's a thankless role and the actor seems unsure if he's playing it for dramatic effect or laughs. Steiger is often a very fine actor, but he can also dive headfirst into unintentional camp if there's  not a strong director to pull him back from the edge. With "Dirty Hands", Chabrol seems to want to have it both ways, and yet squashes any element of fun that might be had, both for the actors and for those watching (and forget trying to figure it out). It simply doesn't work. I'm still not sure if this was supposed to be an erotic thriller or a black comedy. When Steiger starred in "No Way to Treat a Lady", he brilliantly blended pathos with his campier tendencies, and, while watching this film, I wondered if maybe he'd had the same idea for his portrayal of Louis. Maybe not. Because when Louis isn't drunk and acting pitiful and morose, he's really, REALLY creepy. His amusing bits seem accidental, or maybe they're cries for help. He must have had a strong urge to devour every bit of scenery, given the idiocy of the script, but Chabrol's direction is so wishy-washy that Steiger appears uncertain and helpless, a deer in the headlights.  On the other hand, Romy Schneider fares better, for what that's worth. One of the most beautiful women to ever grace the screen, Schneider's work wasn't as well-known and appreciated in America as it was in Europe. As Julie, she's a red-hot chili pepper in a Baccarat vase, running hot and cold as she lies and schemes her way into an unfortunate misfire. I like Schneider in this but the script lets her down at every turn, assigning her a character who's as stupid as she is beautiful. Even so, as was the case with Steiger, I found myself feeling sorry for Julie by the movie's end (a triumph of performance over script and direction). Paolo Giusti has less screen time than the stars, so his character isn't required to vacillate much beyond being passionate and crazed. The remaining characters are impossibly ill-conceived. Jean Rochefort plays Julie's attorney as if he's channeling Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther" movies. He fumbles and bumbles, goes on unrelated tangents in the judge's chambers and still manages to hoodwink the cantankerous old judge (Hans Christian Blech), who, himself, seems to have wandered in from a gallic Andy Hardy movie and has the IQ of a fish. There's also Louis' shady friend and financial advisor who may grant Julie a favor if she's willing to grant him a very special favor in return (wink-wink, nudge-nudge). But, on the other hand, he might also be gay. The way the script plays out, it's not easy to tell. Whatever the case, Francois Perrot does a convincing job playing the seamy and dangerous Georges. By far, the worst characters in the film are the police inspectors played by Henri Attal and Dominique Zardi. All the male characters in this film are misogynistic but these guys are profoundly foul. Presumably on hand to supply comic relief, Attal and Zardi are unfunny and unbearable. And inept. They make the cops in "Blood and Black Lace" (heretofore the most incompetent cops in cinematic history) look like Mensa members.  In fact, once these nimrods showed up I thought Chabrol was trying his hand at giallo, so similar was this element to that genre. No such luck. 

As far as erotic thrillers go, "Innocents With Dirty Hands" does pack a little bit of steam in the earlier sequences, but soon turns into an unintelligible, convoluted mess that loses its way, leaving several unsatisfactory loose ends. After the film, C sighed "well, what did you expect, it's a French movie?"  Whatever that's supposed to mean. I love French films, and appreciate the ambiguity inherent in many of them, but this is a hard film to admire. Even if it did come from one of France's great directors, it's second-rate Chabrol, at best.