gridoon2018 You would think that a movie with this pedigree - Anthony Perkins, Orson Welles, Michel Piccoli in the cast, Claude Chabrol as director, filmed in English on French locations - would be, if not an art-house success, then at least a cult item. And yet "Ten Days Wonder" has been mostly forgotten today. It's not a great movie, but it's worth seeing. Chabrol gets quite a few chances to demonstrate his virtuosity with the camera, as he lets it glide and follow the characters, sometimes switching from present to past. Perkins and Welles are perfectly cast, and Marlène Jobert is sexy, but Piccoli seems slightly uncomfortable with the English language. However, the biggest problem of "Ten Days Wonder" is the sluggish pacing, which makes the 105-minute running time feel even longer (for example, was the scene with Welles' old mother really necessary?). Given the limited number of characters, some of the twists (the blackmailer....) can be guessed beforehand, but others can still shock you. The final 20 minutes mark this as a very dark and bleak movie. **1/2 out of 4.

MartinHafer This is a mildly interesting film that features two famous American actors (Welles and Perkins) along with a French/Italian cast. For some odd reason, the DVD I watched from Pathfinder Home Entertainment did not have working subtitles--the feature was on the DVD but no subtitles appeared. But, considering the film was done in English, it didn't matter.Anthony Perkins plays completely against type. In this movie, he is at times mentally imbalanced,....oh, wait,...that's pretty much what he seems to play in MOST of his movies. Well, at least this time, the hysterical performance by Perkins is described as being the result of being fed drugs by his adopted father.Orsen Welles plays a manipulative fat old rich guy. And I had no particular complaints about his acting. However, one odd little thing bothered me. During the first portion of the movie in particular, his makeup appeared to be all over his face EXCEPT around the nose--which was an obviously different, brownish kind of color--like he had a fake nose or it was necrotic or something. This did not play into the plot at all and I assume it was just the result of bad makeup. Or, maybe he was inspired by the character from CANDIDE, Dr. Pangloss.Marlène Jobert plays Welles' incredibly young wife. She seemed okay in the part.Michel Piccoli played the guy pulled into the middle of this weird family affair (in more ways than one) and probably came off the best for his acting.The plot is a weird twist on breaking the 10 Commandments. Over the course of the film, Perkins is manipulated into breaking all 10 by his nutty adoptive father. This reminded me very much of a contemporary film with a similar plot--THE ABOMNIBLE DR. PHIBES. However, despite PHIBES being a silly horror flick, I think I enjoyed watching it a lot more than this Chabrol film. The film, while not bad, is very difficult to believe and the acting, at times, is a bit over-the-top--especially from Perkins. You could do worse than watch the film but when there are so many better French films, why not watch them first?

dbdumonteil All comments bar one are very negative ,no one mentions writer Ellery Queen,those two cousins who gave some of the best murder mysteries of the twentieth century.Theirs is the metaphysical detective story (Borges admired Ellery Queen),theirs is the unexpected final clue ,theirs is the "nursery chryme" dear to Agatha Christie .Some of their novels are on a level with "And then there were none" .All Ellery Queen novels feature Ellery Queen himself as the detective .Here he is replaced by Michel Piccoli's character ,Paul Régis,which is not a big problem.But the problem lies in the fact that most of the viewers did not recognize "their "Claude Chabrol.If they knew his numerous works ,they'd realize that only a dozen (roughly ,the 1959-1961 ,the 1967-73 golden era and some scattered later films (l'enfer,la ceremonie) are really Chabrolesque ,that is to say detective plot-with- bourgeois background-and ominous atmosphere.There are plenty of bizarre oeuvres in such a huge filmography (a lot of movies should never have been made;Clouzot,who easily artistically surpasses him only made 11 movies,only one of which is mediocre).Actually " decade " took the eerie elements of "la rupture"(1970) and tightened them up.But whereas "La rupture" had a chabrolesque atmosphere and the usual suspects (Stephane Audran,Michel Bouquet),"Decade" features actors Chabrol had not used before (and to my knowledge never would).Coming after "juste avant la Nuit" ,"decade" could only be slagged off when it was released.Today,I must confess that it's not that much bad and compared with recent fiascos such as "la Fleur du Mal" or "au Coeur du Mensonge " or "rien ne va plus" or.... (the list is endless)it retains some originality.I can easily comprehend that people who do not know E.Queen 's world could be infuriated by this Punch and Judy style,but Chabrol faithfully transferred the writer's atmosphere to the screen :the gigantic metaphysical metaphor,a nervous Anthony Perkins -a good choice- ,a enough is enough Orson Welles-who else?- ,God himself.Do not get me wrong:"decade " is no masterpiece but it is a curious offbeat work ,sometimes clumsy (Chabrol felt compelled to "explain" the last scenes for fear his audience may not have understood),sometimes brilliant (the little girl in the train reciting the ten commandments )."Decade" verges on fantastic and predates another non-Chabrolesque intriguing flick "Alice ou la dernière fugue" .I have a warm spot in my heart for these two despised films ."Decade" : a failed success or a successful failure ?And if you hate it (such is the case with many users) it's better than to be unconcerned about it.

taylor9885 Now is the winter of our discontent... TVOntario's Chaine francaise is having a Chabrol retrospective in February and March; we have already seen La route de Corinthe (silly spy caper only made bearable by Jean Seberg's presence) and Les biches (could have been made for a glossy decor magazine; the trite lesbian coupling is never believable). Now we have La decade prodigieuse (Ten Day's Wonder).The chateau reflects the Twenties and the elegance of the Jazz Age, but the costumes were ridiculous. Tony Perkins in plus-fours and a ridiculous cap is not in tune with Jay Gatsby: in fact he looks like a regular at a really foppish gay bar. Marlene Jobert's costumes are those of a convent school product. Orson Welles has been fitted with a fake nose that's a really awful greenish color; otherwise he looks the way he used to in those Paul Masson commercials.A murder mystery that can't create atmosphere, or creates the wrong kind, is never successful. Tsilla Chelton, so wonderful in Tatie Danielle, has a cameo as Perkins's mother: she does a Mrs. Rochester impression that makes you believe she's going to burn the house down. The blackmail payments are confusing and badly handled. The strong hints of pedophilia in the Welles-Jobert marriage seem to come from another film.Chabrol is a lazy filmmaker whose vast output--just look at all the entries in his filmography--indicates efficiency rather than talent. He'll give you a rare good film (Les cousins) amid lots of schlock.