Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978)

Primary Genre: Black comedy

Secondary Genres: Whodunit, tongue-in-cheek comedy, black satire

Plot: As the title suggests, someone is killing the great chefs of Europe, and he or she is doing it in ways that ironically suggest each victim’s culinary specialty.. Is the killer

• Max (Robert Morley) - The morbidly obese and overbearing food critic whose fatal condition is due to overeating meals from the chefs he has praised the most?  Or...
• Natasha (Nat) O'Brien (Jacqueline Bisset) - The celebrated pastry/dessert chef who’s been romantically attached to the victims? Or...
  
• Robby Ross (George Segal) - The fast talking fast-food entrepreneur/con man and Nat’s ex husband? Or…
• Auguste Grandvilliers (Jean Rochefort) - The dangerously high strung chef who feels he’d been unjustly overshadowed by the victims?  Or…
• A minor character who has an undisclosed motive because all those suspects were just red herrings?

The Good Stuff: 

• Comedy vs Mystery: As long as you don’t mistake this for a proper murder mystery, this is a mostly fun tongue-in-cheek satirical black comedy set in the world of haute cuisine.
• Good Cast:

• Robert Morley is his usual outrageous self. (If you’ve seen him in Theatre of Blood, you’ve seen what he’s doing here, only he gets a better developed and written character to it.)
• George Segal is his usual congenial self with good comedic timing.
• Jean Rochefort plays it as wacky comedy relief (which is saying something when it’s in a comedy).

The Bad Stuff:

• Jacqueline Bisset is lovely as this story’s primary protagonist, but she’s also miscast as an American (American?  Her?  Not with that posh accent she ain’t!) and her character does little here besides sleep with the victims and bicker with her ex about her right to sleep around.  Kinda svelte for a world famous dessert chef, too.  Just sayin’.
• The Exciting (?) Climax - The climax tries to surprise us with a pun you’ve already experienced in the denouement of Diamonds are Forever (1971), and you’ll see this coming from miles away.  (OK, I’ll spill it.  Somebody set her up the bombe.)
  
• It goes into screwball comedy mode.  Nothing wrong with screwball comedy -- unless you’ve been playing it as a smart, relatively sedate tongue-in-cheek comedy and then suddenly just go silly with it.  (It gets back on track during the denouement, where all-is-revealed, etc.)
• And the Killer Is: If you ‘ve seen more than a couple murder mysteries, then the identity of the killer is disappointingly easy to spot given how story is told.  Also, for a murder mystery, there are some serious plot holes, but that’s OK: This is a black comedy/satire; the murder mystery doesn’t have to be consistent because it’s only there as a story frame. 

The Who Cares Stuff:

• This movie was made during the wave of  popularity of Agatha Christie type murder mysteries during the 70s following the huge success of Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and is similarly presented.
• Based on the book Someone Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe by Nan and Ivan Lyon.  Nan Lyon was a food/travel writer. (Waitaminute.  “Nan”? And the female protagonist in this story is called “Nat”.  Just sayin’.)
• Made by MGM, distributed by Lorrimar, didn’t find a solid audience, and mostly vanished after its theatrical run.  (Never heard of it?  Wondering why a blog called “Dubious Movies” is talking about it?  There you go.  We’re not all B movies here.  Sometimes an A picture can be dubious.)

The Bottom Line: Tongue in cheek black comedy satirizing the world of haute cuisine.  Good cast.  Disappointingly easy murder mystery.  Might find an audience on the Food Network.