Crime Does Not Pay
Cast & Crew
Gérard Oury
Edwige Feuillère
Gabriele Ferzetti
Rosanna Schiaffino
Laura Efrikian
Gino Cervi
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
A young Parisian, Pierre Marsais, visits a Champs-Elysées movie house to see Crime Does Not Pay , a film based on three celebrated crimes. The first part, THE MASK, concerns a 15th-century Venetian duchess, Dona Lucrezia, who invites her unfaithful lover, the Chevalier Giraldi, to what will be his own funeral and then has him murdered. The duchess pays for her crime when her maid, who secretly loved Giraldi, coats the beauty mask she wears at night with acid. In the second episode, THE HUGHES CASE, Clovis Hugues, a radical member of parliament, becomes involved in a scandal when his wife, Jeanne, is unjustly accused of being the mistress of Monsieur Lenormand. In reality, Madame Lenormand had hired a detective, Morin, to find proof of her husband's infidelity so that she can obtain a divorce, and Morin had invented the evidence. Jeanne sues Morin for libel, but Morin wins an acquittal by bribing the jury. Jeanne then takes the law into her own hands and shoots the detective. At her own trial for murder, she is vindicated by the courts. The third segment, THE FENAYROU CASE, takes place in 1913 and concerns Gabrielle Fenayrou, an adulteress who maneuvers her aged husband into killing Aubert, a lover who plans to marry another woman. She then betrays her husband to the police so that she can enter into a new affair with his young doctor. The two toast their love from a bottle of poisoned wine the husband had prepared for Aubert. In the final episode, THE MAN ON THE AVENUE, Marsais leaves the theater at the end of the film and is fatally injured in an automobile accident. The driver of the car, an American colonel, calls on Marsais' widow, an alcoholic. A subsequent investigation reveals that Marsais, aided by his mistress Hélène, had been plotting to kill his wife.
Director
Gérard Oury
Cast
Edwige Feuillère
Gabriele Ferzetti
Rosanna Schiaffino
Laura Efrikian
Gino Cervi
Rina Morelli
Serge Lifar
Michèle Morgan
Lucienne Bogaert
Jean Servais
Renaud Mary
Philippe Noiret
Marie Daems
Claude Cerval
Annie Girardot
Pierre Brasseur
Christian Marquand
Paul Guers
Richard Todd
Danielle Darrieux
Perrette Pradier
Louis De Funès
Raymond Loyer
Frank Villard
Yves Brainville
Crew
Jean Aurenche
Pierre Boileau
Gilbert Bokanowski
Gilbert Bokanowski
Pierre Bost
Adeline Crouset
Frédéric Dard
Georges Delerue
Roger Dwyre
Paul Gordeaux
Henri Jeanson
Raymond Lamy
Joseph E. Levine
Christian Matras
Jean Monchablon
Thomas Narcejac
Gérard Oury
Jacques Sigurd
Jean-charles Tacchella
Georges Wakhévitch
Georges Wakhévitch
René Wheeler
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
Opened in Paris in July 1962 as Le crime ne paie pas. "The Hugues Case" was also known as "The Spider's Web." A two-part version of the film known as The Gentle Art of Murder, running 79 min and containing "The Fenayrou Case" and "The Man on the Avenue" was released in 1963. Italian title: Il delitto non paga.
