The gourmet orgy

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Movie
German title The gourmet orgy
Original title Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
Country of production USA , FRG
original language English
Publishing year 1978
length 112 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Ted Kotcheff
script Peter Stone
production William Aldrich
music Henry Mancini
camera John Alcott
cut Thom Noble
occupation

The Schlemmer-Orgy (Original title: Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? ) Is a comedy film by director Ted Kotcheff from 1978. Alternative titles are A saucepan full of corpses and cheers meal . It was based on a novel by Ivan and Nan Lyons .

action

Maximillian Vandeveer, the overweight restaurant critic and editor of a gourmet magazine, is entrusted with the task of hosting a festive banquet for the Queen of England. Among the chefs he chooses are the American Natascha O'Brian, who specializes in exquisite desserts and who serves a “Bomb Richelieu”, and the Swiss Louis Kohner, who serves his legendary pigeons in a batter as a starter.

Both are also featured in an article in Vandeveers Gourmetmagazin, in which he presents the dishes of four chefs as, in his opinion, “the best menu in the world”. These include the Italian Fausto Zoppi with a lobster course and the French Moulineau with his world-famous squeezed duck. This arouses the envy and resentment of other top chefs. Auguste Grandvilliers in particular is very angry and takes his anger out on Louis Kohner, whom he insults and threatens.

Natascha O'Brian recently separated from her husband Robby Ross, who makes millions from fast food chains in the United States. He has also traveled to Europe to seek a top European chef to promote his latest creation, a chain of omelette restaurants called Humpty-Dumpty . He would also like to win back his ex-wife.

During a visit to the doctor, Maximillian Vandeveer learns that his life is in acute danger because of his excessive eating and the resulting obesity if he does not start dieting immediately. However, he doesn't care and goes to his friend Louis Kohner for dinner immediately after the doctor's visit, against the vigorous protest of his assistant Beecham.

After Natascha has spent the night with Louis, she finds him the next morning in his kitchen, murdered in his oven. The next day she flies to Venice on behalf of Vandeveer and visits Fausto Zoppi to get his legendary lobster recipe for Maximillian. When she wants to visit him again in the evening for dinner, he lies dead in his lobster tank.

She and her ex-husband Robby are now summoning France's most famous chefs in Paris to warn them that one of them could be next after first the top chef from England and then the top chef from Italy were killed. But each of them seems almost more concerned about not being good enough to be one of the chosen murder victims.

Suddenly Natascha realizes that the killer is killing all the cooks in the order of Max Vandeveer's menu and that she is the dessert. An assassination attempt against Grandvilliers, who survived, initially dissuaded them, but this quickly turned out to be a deception by Grandvilliers, who could not bear not to be murdered as the best cook.

Meanwhile, on the trip to Zoppi's funeral, Max visits Moulineau in Paris again to get the recipe for his squeezed duck from him. The next day Moulineau ends up with his head in his duck press .

Now the suspicion falls on Max Vandeveer. But Robby is able to prevent Natascha from being killed by a hidden explosive charge at the last minute when she wants to present her "Bomb Richelieu" on an English TV cooking show . He suspected that Max had exchanged the prepared ice cream cakes the evening before.

Max Vandeveer has meanwhile withdrawn to a London restaurant with his loyal Beecham in order to eat himself to death for good. When Natascha and Robby meet him there, accompanied by the police, he confesses with the last of his strength, sitting in a sea of ​​food, that this damn diet is to blame for everything. He just couldn't do without all the goodies that would kill him. Finally he sinks his head into a cake standing next to him. A policeman standing next to him declares him dead.

Superintendent Blodgett then declares the case closed. Vandeveer's confession is enough for him. Beecham then reveals to them that Maximillian did not kill anyone. He couldn't have harmed a fly. She herself got rid of the people who, through her seductive dishes, put her boss in mortal danger. She would have had no choice but to save her beloved master.

With a strong hiccup, Maximillian suddenly wakes up from his brief faint.

Natascha and Robby are getting married for the second time and now want to run the Humpty Dumpty restaurants together, but promise each other to pay attention to both low prices and the highest quality.

Max tries the delicious omelettes during the ceremony.

Production / cast

The film is an American-German co-production . The film was shot on original locations in London, Paris and Venice. Most of the interior shots took place in the Munich Bavaria film studios at the same time as Billy Wilder was producing his film Fedora there . The buildings were created by the film architect Rolf Zehetbauer .

In the cast, supporting roles were also partly cast with internationally renowned actors from the respective nations; this is especially true for the French celebrity chefs. So were z. B. Phillipe Noiret ( Topas by Alfred Hitchcock ) and especially Jacques Marin ( Charade by Stanley Donen , How do you steal a million? By William Wyler , The Marathon Man by John Schlesinger ) have already been seen in Hollywood film productions by world-famous directors.

A few years later, director Ted Kotcheff celebrated his greatest success with the first Rambo film.

criticism

The film was partly loved and partly hated by the critics. The lexicon of international films judges it to be a "[f] lotty and entertainingly told black comedy with ironic swipes at top gastronomy". Segnalazione Cinematografiche notes: “Despite the repetition of certain situations and a certain loss of speed, the film is an example of good film comedy. The dialogues are funny, the actors are excellent, the plot is constructed but original. ” Time
magazine, on the other hand, felt that the story was only“ used to justify the cameos of some European stars and the staging of famous bars, ”praised the Camera work, but the director called it “lifeless” and judged the film as a whole: “If it weren't for endless interrogation scenes, it would hardly be recognizable as a suspense film”.

Awards

Golden Globe Award 1979

Writers Guild of America 1979

  • Nomination for the WGA Award for Peter Stone

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/54406/Who-Is-Killing-the-Great-Chefs-of-Europe-/overview
  2. ↑ The gourmet orgy. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 10, 2019 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Vol. 86, 1979
  4. ↑ https://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,946111,00.html