Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Year Released: 1978
Rating: 2.0
And while we're asking questions: Who the Hell Would Cheat on Jacqueline Bisset? Acclaimed pastry chef Natasha (Bisset) goes to England to prepare a bombe glacée for the Queen only to find that her ex-husband Robert (George Segal) is also there trying to start a chain of omelette shoppes and that many culinary masters (including Philippe Noiret and Jean Rochefort) keep getting knocked off. It doesn't really "work" as a detective story (the deaths are played for black comedy) and the pacing is definitely off - it's really just a trifle, with the leads being significantly less interesting than, say, Robert Morley's tumefied gastronome, who is told at the beginning of the movie he has to go on a diet and becomes the movie's prime suspect. The person who is revealed to be the killer has the most absurd rationale (it's not who anyone would think), but the last shot is kind of great. Side note: there's no way this didn't influence the Mr. Creosote skit in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life five years later.