Trio Infernal

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Movie
German title Trio Infernal
Original title Le trio infernal
Country of production France
Germany
Italy
original language French
Publishing year 1974
length 107, 84 (abridged version) minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Francis Girod
script Francis Girod
Jacques Rouffio
production Wolfdieter by Stein
Raymond Danon
Jacques Dorfmann
music Ennio Morricone
camera Andréas Winding
cut Claude Barrois
occupation

Trio Infernal (original title: Le trio infernal ) is a Franco-German-Italian co-production, which was directed by Francis Girod in 1974 as a black comedy . Michel Piccoli , Romy Schneider and Mascha Gonska play the leading roles .

action

Marseille 1931: Philomene Schmidt (Romy Schneider), a beautiful young German who is employed as a carer for an old woman, is on the street after her death. Her lover, an elderly French named Villette (Jean Rigaux), pretends not to be able to marry her because a divorce from his wife, who has been missing since the war, is impossible. The greedy lawyer Georges Sarret (Michel Piccoli), accepted into the Legion of Honor, steps in and presents Villette with forged documents about the death of his wife. Now nothing stands in the way of a marriage. Almost at the same time, Philomene and her sister Catherine (Mascha Gonska) become the lawyer's mistresses. After Villette's imminent death, Georges regrets not having taken out life insurance for him.

He avoids this mistake when he persuades the sick pensioner Detreuil to marry a young German who wants to stay in France and therefore take on French citizenship. This time Catherine is the bride. Georges also finds a healthy accomplice, Chambon, who is willing to pretend to be Detreuil and take out life insurance in Catherine's favor. After Detreuil's death and the payment of the sum insured, Georges first deducts his alleged expenses, dividing the rest by two: one half for himself and one half for his two lovers.

To be on the safe side, Georges wants to get Chambon out of the way next. So it is a good thing that he is married to a very rich pawnbroker: Noemie (Andréa Ferréol). For Christmas, Georges, Philomene and Catherine invite the couple. While Noemie and Philomene were washing the dishes in the kitchen, Catherine jingled the piano so loudly that the pistol shot with which Georges struck down the landlord cannot be heard. Then Georges takes a rifle from the gun cabinet, goes outside, nods in a friendly manner to Noemie through the kitchen window - and shoots her. The trio drag the corpses into the bathroom and place them in two bathtubs filled with sulfuric acid so that they dissolve.

Another accomplice, who pretends to be Chambon, instructs Georges to sell the house of the dead in the presence of a notary.

Through another fraud, Georges also got the life insurance, which he had taken out on behalf of the terminally ill shoemaker Di Lorenzo.

Meanwhile, Georges has decided to go into politics. In order to clear the way, he ensures that one of the candidates for the upcoming elections is compromised by photographs that show him in red with other women. To camouflage, Georges varies the method: Next, he takes out high life insurance for Catherine and sends Philomene to find a young, terminally ill orphan who is then to be passed off as Catherine. Philomene pretends to be a wealthy, benevolent widow and actually finds a consumptive young woman (Monica Fiorentini) without relatives, whose care in the hospital is too much work. The trio brings the girl into their home. Catherine has to play maid and nurse rolled into one. To hasten death, Georges takes the lung patient to a casino at night and then gets Catherine to seduce the exhausted woman in her bed. Contrary to expectations, the lesbian girl blossoms. Catherine throws herself desperately out of the window.

In the funeral procession, Georges whispers to Philomene that the life insurance has paid. Soon after, the two married.

background

The film is based on the authentic case of the murderer Georges-Alexandre Sarrejani , who was executed on April 10, 1934 in Aix-en-Provence .

The role of Catherine was originally offered to Uschi Glas . She declined the tempting offer because she did not feel up to the task: "I should have sacrificed my soul for this role."

Reviews

  • prisma-online : With concise character drawings, directorial debutant Francis Girod (“The Banker's Wife”) succeeds in walking a furious tightrope walk between macabre realism and bitter irony with his splendidly furnished show piece. In addition to the irresistible Michel Piccoli, an uninhibited and unleashed Romy Schneider shines in the role of the unscrupulous, life-hungry luxury woman, who here finally does away with her "Sissi" image, shocked the "Sissi" fans and from the French press as the "charming monster" “Was celebrated.
  • Lexicon of international film : The sometimes blatantly naturalistic show piece is far from parody and satire: an ice cold staged game with blood and disgust, violence and multiple perversion, which is only a rudimentary image of modern ways of life and social mechanisms. The music alone adds a bit of humor to the heaviness of meaning.

literature

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Uschi Glas: With a Smile , p. 130 (2004)
  2. Trio Infernal. In: Prism Online. Retrieved February 4, 2017 .
  3. Trio Infernal. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 4, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used