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

The way in which the chefs are killed is one of the movie's many delights: They're cooked into their very own specialties (that makes the movie a double whodunit: Who done it, of course… and then how well were they done?). The murders lead to a twofold horror. A ghastly death awaits the victims, and there is unspeakable humiliation for those chefs who are apparently not great enough to be killed.

The movie's a light, silly entertainment, with class. A lot of the class comes from Morley, who's spent most of his time in recent years on the London stage and in British Airways commercials.

The plot itself is… but here there's an overwhelming temptation to yield to the movie's imagery. It's a fluffy pastry, a delectable confection, light, tart, not filling. It involves not only Morley but also Jacqueline Bisset, as a great chef, and George Segal, as her husband, the fast-food millionaire. Bisset is preparing a banquet for Buckingham Palace, and the specialty of her associate (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is pigeon en croute. Alas, the pigeons are spared, but Cassel's goose is cooked.

The mystery deepens, as meals and murders are savored in Paris, Venice and London. There are all sorts of suspects, and lots of gory discoveries in kitchens, and Morley presides magnificently: He is so right for this role, and takes such an obvious delight in it, that we begin to just automatically smile every time he appears, on the screen. He's good, I'd say, for an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor… and that's not even counting the scenes where he rises from the table.

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