Ten Days’ Wonder [La Décade prodigieuse] *** (1971, Orson Welles, Marlène Jobert, Anthony Perkins, Michel Piccoli) – Classic Movie Review 11,579

English poster for Ten Days’ Wonder.

Director Claude Chabrol’s fascinating 1971 French murder-mystery film Ten Days’ Wonder [La Décade prodigieuse] stars Orson Welles, Marlène Jobert, Anthony Perkins, and Michel Piccoli. Intriguing as it always is, Chabrol defined it as a ‘failed film’ because it had to be made in English for commercial reasons. The film suffers from some ropey dialogue and bad dubbing in the French version. Against that there is a riveting plot and some bravura filming, like the scene with a spectacular crane shot at the railway station.

The screenplay by Paul Gégauff (dialogue), Eugène Archer and Paul Gardner follows the story of the novel Ten Days’ Wonder by Ellery Queen (aka Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee) but the book’s detective Ellery Queen is removed entirely and changed to the psychologist Paul Regis (Michel Piccoli), the former teacher of the disturbed hero.

Anthony Perkins plays disturbed young sculptor Charles Van Horn, who wakes up in strange hotels with his memory gone and bloody hands. He seeks help from his former professor Paul Regis (Michel Piccoli) and invites him to the provincial manor presided over by his multimillionaire tycoon father Théo Van Horn (Orson Welles). Regis is greeted by Théo Van Horn’s young wife Hélène Van Horn (Marlène Jobert) and goes on to uncover illicit sex, blackmail, faked burglary and murder.

It is the fourth film starring Welles and Perkins together since The Trial in 1962.

The main cast are Orson Welles as Théo Van Horn, Marlène Jobert as Helene Van Horn, Anthony Perkins as Charles Van Horn, Michel Piccoli as Paul Regis, Tsilla Chelton as Théo’s mother, Guido Alberti as Théo’s brother Ludovic Van Horn, Ermanno Casanova as One-Eyed Old Man and Mathilde Ceccarelli as Receptionist.

Chabrol was a well-known gourmet chef and decided to shoot 10 Days’ Wonder in Alsace because he wanted to visit the restaurants there.

Chabrol announced the film several times in the 1960s, always with Orson Welles, who was unavailable till 1971. When asked why he did not hire another actor to play Théo, Chabrol replied: ‘Only Orson Welles can play God.’

Although shot in France by a French team, the film was made in English. Orson Welles is dubbed in French by Georges Aminel and Anthony Perkins by Philippe Nicaud.

Chabrol quoted this film as the one he completely missed by ‘excess of ambition’. He admitted to have somehow ‘sacrificed’ his film to Welles’s ‘coquetry’.

Ellery Queen’s 1948 novel is primarily set in the US imaginary small New England town of Wrightsville. Millionaire Diedrich Van Horn’s Howard comes to Ellery Queen to ask him investigate what he has been doing during his recent amnesia. The trail leads to Wrightsville and what seems to be a love triangle with Howard’s stepmother, the beautiful young Sally, from the wrong side of the tracks. A series of small and unusual crimes over the next nine days seem to be committed by Howard during amnesiac blackouts.

Claude Chabrol (24 June 1930 – 12 September 2010).

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,579

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