The Cohen Media Group will bring to Blu-ray two classic thrillers directed by Claude Chabrol:
Cop Au Vin a.k.a.
Chicken With Vinegar (1985), starring Jean Poiret, Stéphane Audran, Michel Bouquet, and Lucas Belvaux, and
Inspector Lavardin (1986), starring Jean Poiret, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Bernadette Lafont. The two films, which will be part of
The Inspector Lavardin Collection, will be available for purchase on April 22.
Chicken With Vinegar
Stéphane Audran plays a cruel, wheelchair-bound invalid who bullies her teenaged son Louis (Lucas Belvaux) into abject obedience. The pair is threatened by a conniving trio of "upright citizens" that want to buy her property as part of a deal for a lucrative development project. However, the two eccentrics, who are given to reading everyone's mail before it is delivered, won't sell. With townsfolk dropping off left and right in a series of gruesome murders, it requires the deceptively charming Inspector Lavardin (Jean Poiret) to get to the bottom of it all.
Inspector Lavardin
Jean Poiret returns as the remarkably urbane detective from
Cop Au Vin. This time he arrives at a cozy, seaside village to investigate the bizarre murder of a eminent Catholic author. A "pillar" of society, the writer is found dead by the shore, the word 'pig' scrawled across his naked body with lipstick and a huge stab wound in his back. The usually cool sleuth is shaken when he discovers that the victim's window is none other than his old flame. Stylish and charming, with lighthearted jabs at bourgeois conventions,
Inspecteur Lavardin is a first-rate thriller from master film-maker Claude Chabrol.
UPDATE
Special Features:
The
Inspector Lavardin Colelction includes the two additional Lavardin mysteries that Chabrol directed for television: "The Black Snail" (1988) and "Danger Lies in the Words" (1989). Other extras in the set are audio commentary by film critics Wade Major and Andy Klein and a new essay by critic Peter Tonguette.