Corrupción de Chris Miller, La (1973)

Director:

Juan Antonio Bardem

Writers:

Santiago Moncada (screenplay)
Santiago Moncada (story)

Release Date:

septiembre 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Horror

Plot:

A serial killer uses a scythe to slash his murder victims--or maybe it's *her* murder victims? |

Plot Keywords:

Axe | Daughter | Love Triangle | Murder | Rural

Comentarios de los usuarios:

A young drifter complicates life for two unhappy women.

Cast

Jean Seberg	...	Ruth Miller
Marisol	...	Chris Miller
Barry Stokes	...	Barney Webster
Perla Cristal	...	Perla
Rudy Gaebel	...	Lewis
Alicia Altabella
Gérard Tichy	...	Commissioner
Juan Antonio Bardem
Mariano Vidal Molina		(as Vidal Molina)
Antonio Parra
Gustavo Re
listado alfabético del resto del reparto:
María Bardem
Miguel Bardem
Goyo Lebrero

También conocida como:

Behind the Shutters
Sisters of Corruption
The Corruption of Chris Miller

Duración:

107 min

País:

Spain

Idioma:

Español

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Iceland:16 | USA:R | Netherlands:16

Filming Locations:

Barcelona, Cataluña, Spain

Company:

Xavier Armet P.C.

Soundtrack:

Au clair de la lune

A young drifter complicates life for two unhappy women.

According to David Richards' biography of Jean Seberg, she did this film because she needed the money. Well, it's obvious she didn't do it for the script of this convoluted Spanish thriller.

Seberg plays Ruth Miller, a fashion designer, spending the summer in Spain with her stepdaughter Chris, played by the former Spanish child star Marisol. Ruth and Chris do not get along particularly well. Ruth wants to get revenge on her husband, who abandoned Ruth and Chris a year earlier, by corrupting his daughter - hence the film's title. Chris has also just returned from a Swiss hospital where she received psychological treatment after being raped while taking a shower. These memories are triggered whenever it rains and she lashes out at anyone near her. It rains a lot in this movie. Into this situation comes a young English drifter, Barney, played by Barry Stokes. Ruth takes him in but he ends up falling for Chris. This causes even more tension between the two women. In the meantime, a series of brutal murders have occurred in the surrounding countryside. All indications point to Barney as the murderer. Ruth and Chris seem to think so and they stab him to death in a particularly graphic and protracted scene complete with slow-motion photography. Realizing their mistake when the real murderer is arrested the next day, they bury his body in the path of a road being built. I won't identify the real murderer except to say that the ending is completely arbitrary. The final scene of the film with Ruth and Chris chatting intimately by the pool is quite bizarre - I'm not exactly sure what is really happening there.

As usual with her later work, this film is of note only for the presence of Jean Seberg. The direction and photography are routine although some flashback scenes are well handled. The score does contribute to the mood of the film. Among the performers, Barry Stokes is very effective, Marisol is quite acceptable and Jean Seberg simply seems embarrassed by the whole thing. She is never really convincing and seems particularly uncomfortable with the less than subtle implication of a lesbian relationship between Ruth and Chris.

This film shares a strange number of plot points with the earlier British film "The Night Digger": both feature an unhappy relationship between a stepmother and stepdaughter, a young drifter who enters into this relationship and victims being buried in the path of a new road. Just a coincidence?