Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?

1978 US
Dir: Ted Kotcheff
Str: George Segal, Jacqueline Bisset, Robert Morley

Who is killing the great chefs of Europe? is a movie having both
muder mystery elements and comedy elements.
As far as I can remember, in 1970s, there appeared three movies that mixed the elements of a murder mystery with the ones of a comedy, and all of them are excellent. They are Murder by Death, Silver Streak, and Who is killing the great chefs of Europe?. As I mentioned the first one in another review, I am not going to refer to it here. As for SilverStreak, the comedy element is mostly derived from the performances of two lead comedians, Jene Wilder and Richard Pryor. So I don't have much to say about this film, though it is a very entertaining movie indeed. On the other hand, in the case of Who is killing the great chefs of Europe?, there are elements that are not completely dependant on the comedic performances to lend the movie comedy touch. I will explain it later. But, as usual, I firstly mention the synopsis.
What is the story like?
Who is killing the great chefs of Europe? is an utter hilarious movie, even if many famous European actors such as Jan-Pierre Cassel, Philip Noiret are brutaly murdered in the movie. They are murdered in such a way as they usually cook their own special dishes. For example, Jan-Pierre Cassel whose speciality is roasted pigeons shall be murdered in an oven, and Philip Noiret whose speciality is pressed ducks shall be murdered in a confined place, and the heroin, Jacqueline Bisset, is about to be killed by a bomb. As those who have never seen this movie before might think what a bomb has got to do with a dish, I am going to explain it here. Her speciality is desserts and she is especially famous for the dessert called "la bombe" which, for me, looks nothing but a toy crown used for kindergarten performances. But, to my surprise, even a certain lady of the royal family praises this odd stuff. Incredible isn't it? Though I assume probably the writer managed to come up with such a stuff as was barely suitable for a comedy element, imaging such an endeavor of the writer's part is ten times funnier than the stuff itself. Anyway so the title comes. Who is killing the great chefs of Europe? However, since the movie's point never resides in answering this question, your effort to try to answer it wouldn't pay so much, I guarantee. So you should not be disappointed when the real murderer is revealed.
I've never seen such a colorful movie before. I thought so when I
watched this movie first time.
Then, what is the prominent point of this movie? Firstly, I would like to say the movie is surprisingly colorful. When I watched this film in a movie theater for the first first time, I thought I had never seen such a colorful movie before. Not only by various colorful and gorgeous banquet dishes, but also by colorful locations in several European cities, visual effect is very stunning. The word "visual feast" would be the most suitable word for expressing the film. Furthermore, the music composed by Henri Mancini is quite appropriate to the overall ambiance and surprisingly hilarious. I assure you will be surely entertained by this film, if cannot be called a masterpiece.
What is George Segal doing among almost entirely European cast?
He looks like an evangelist trying to introduce American food to
Eourope.
By the way, most of the players in this movie are European actors and actresses despite the fact the movie is American made. The only exception is George Segal. Although Jacqueline Bisset has so far appeared more in American movies than in British ones, she is essentially a British actress, for she has a quality American actresses rarely have; i.e. elegance. And the comic element mainly comes from this only-American-in-this-film George Segal's desperate struggle for establishing an American first food chain in European countries whose culture values culinary skills (of course, not for first foods) very highly. Especially the inflatable balloon figure to be used for the advertisement of American first food products looks a caricature figure insinuating the coarseness of American easy-going mass-consumption. Of course, I don't think the movie is intended for explicating the difference between American culture and European one, for it is too much a subject to be handled in this kind of comedy movies. But, whenever I watch the movie, I am always wondering whether, by this film, European people are making fun of American culture or American people are making fun of European one (after all, this is an American movie) or rather both. And the scene George Segal misunderstands the meaning of the word "second floor" seems to be symbolizing the cultural difference between America and Europe very well, and I have noticed that even between these two countries both of which use English as an official language, there seems to be many differences that may cause several awkard situations.

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