Elke Sommer (the premier German actress (sic)), plays Magdalene Kruschen, a gold digging model, whose marriage to rich Charles, loses its verve. Each of them conspires to hire killers to knock off one another. The film is structured using court room scenes, mixing this with flashbacks to the events that are discussed on the stand. Based upon the true-life murder of Christine Demeter, one of the most famous crimes in Canadian modern history, this film, with its made-for-television aesthetic, is cheep, and fundamentally flawed.
We follow as the married couple (the names were changed for legal reasons), as they conspire against each other, Charles embarking on an affair with the young Pauline Corte (Cindy Girling - Miss Canada 1977). Magdalene, simply fucks anyone with money, power, and connections with killers-for-hire. It's an incredibly dull affair, pacing through severely wretched people, and their petty affairs. And of course, what these "wonderful" characters want, is the large insurance payoff in the event of deaths.
Whilst taking much of the real-life crime, it obviously needs to change it slightly. But it is left a little ambiguous as to Charles' actual guilt. He is (as in life) convicted of hiring a murderer, we are left guessing as to whether he actually did it. Still, awful film, with very little merit - although Howard Shore composed the score (his first feature film), and we of course know his subsequent scores include David Cronenberg's output, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
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