Red Wedding [Les noces rouges] ***½ (1973, Stéphane Audran, Michel Piccoli, Claude Piéplu) – Classic Movie Review 9872

Those cool and distinguished players Stéphane Audran and Michel Piccoli star in writer-director Claude Chabrol’s 1973 Hitchcockian crime thriller Red Wedding [Les noces rouges] as Lucienne Delamare and Pierre Maury, who are having an affair in a French small town. Lucienne’s husband Paul (Claude Piéplu) is the mayor.

[Spoiler alert] Pierre’s wife Clotilde (Clotilde Joano) is sickly and dies suddenly, poisoned by Pierre. Paul finds out the truth and blackmails Pierre into supporting a dodgy land deal, so the two lovers decide to kill Paul on a lonely road and set fire to the car.

Chabrol keeps his enjoyable, upper-middle-range film sleek, sinister, unsettling and involving, and there are three excellent, polished performances, gracing the film with their presence. Chabrol and the actors are definitely in their element.

Chabrol’s screenplay is loosely based on real events in the small town of Bourganeuf in 1970. Heating engineer René Balaire was found burnt to death in his car, but his wife Yvette had escaped unharmed. The police found he had died from a revolver shot fired by her lover Bernard Cousty, who had killed his own wife.

Also in the cast are Eliana De Santis as Lucienne’s daughter Hélène Chevalier, François Robert as Auriol and Daniel Lecourtois as Prefet / Department governor.

It was filmed in Valençay, a commune in the Indre department in central France, situated in the Loire Valley on a hillside overlooking the River Nahon.

It is also known as Wedding in Blood.

Chabrol directed Stéphane Audran in 24 movies, one TV movie and one TV episode. They were married from 1964 to 1980. He died at the age of 80 on September 12, 2010. She died at the age of 85 on March 27, 2018.

Films directed by Claude Chabrol: Le Beau Serge (1958), Les Cousins (1959), À double tour [Web of Passion] (1959), Les Bonnes Femmes (1960), Les godelureaux [Wise Guys] (1961), The Seven Deadly Sins  (segment L’avarice) (1961), The Third Lover (1962), Landru (1963), Ophélia (1963), The World’s Most Beautiful Swindlers (segment L’Homme qui vendit la Tour Eiffel) 1964), Le Tigre aime la chair fraîche [Code Name: Tiger] (1964), Marie Chantal contre Dr Kha [Blue Panther] (1965), Six in Paris (segment La Muette) (1965), Our Agent Tiger [Le Tigre se parfume à la dynamite] (1965), Line of Demarcation (1966), The Champagne Murders (1967), La route de Corinthe [The Road to Corinth] (1967), Les Biches (1968), La Femme Infidèle [The Unfaithful Wife] (1969), This Man Must Die (1969), Le Boucher [The Butcher] (1970), The Breach (1970), Just Before Nightfall (1971), Ten Days’ Wonder (1971), Docteur Popaul (1972), Red Wedding [Les noces rouges] [Wedding in Blood] (1973), Nada [The Nada Gang] (1974), Une partie de plaisir [Pleasure Game] (1975), Innocents with Dirty Hands [Les Innocents aux Mains Sales] (1975), Death Rite (1976), The Twist (1976), Alice or the Last Escapade (1977), Blood Relatives (1978), Violette Nozière (1978), The Horse of Pride (1980), The Hatter’s Ghost (1982), The Blood of Others (1984), Poulet au vinaigre [Cop au Vin] (1985), Inspecteur Lavardin (1986), Masks (1987), The Cry of the Owl (1987), Story of Women (1988), Quiet Days in Clichy (1990), Dr M (1990), Madame Bovary (1991), Betty (1992), The Eye of Vichy (1993), L’enfer [Hell] (1994), La Cérémonie (1995), The Swindle (1997), The Color of Lies (1999), Merci pour le Chocolat (2000), The Flower of Evil (2003), The Bridesmaid (2004), Comedy of Power (2006), A Girl Cut in Two (2007), and Inspector Bellamy (2009).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9872

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