I found it quite bizarre that this bizarre movie made in 1971 is rated so low and some reviews are so bad. French director Chabrol unites with french actors Michel Piccoli and Marlene Jobert and Americans Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins (Perkins frequently worked with Welles). Loosely based on a mystery novel by Ellery Queen, this film is excellent and should be taught in film history classes. It combines elements from European and American cinema and the final outcome is World Cinema with superb acting by Orson Welles. Welles plays his favorite "Shakesperian" type of character, which he portrait in his films Othello, Macbeth, Citizen Kane, Mr. Arkadin and Immortal Story (which he made few years earlier). The film has good camera work, excellent props (statues that reminded me of the one's in Citizen Kane), costumes by Karl Lagerfeld and a strange electronic score at the beginning of the film supplemented with classical music as the film progresses. I won't spoil anything by going into plot details but to sum things up; this film kind of feels like "Citizen Kane part 2 made in France". Welles' character, Theo, lives in a mansion, his wife is having an affair, he's lonely, he's always buying expensive art and so on. Welles the filmmaker dominates this film, it's quite clear that director Chabrol learned a awful lot from him, the editing, the music, camera-work and the dramatic performances all remind me of his work. Highly recommended and it's a shame how hard it is to find a copy of this film, cause Orson Welles never acted in a good motion picture after Ten Days Wonder.
Review of Ten Days Wonder
