While traveling to a resort in Tunisia, the magician and clairvoyant Professor Vestar (Gert Fröbe) befriends the idle millionaire Edouard Vangard (Jean Rochefort) in his car. Vestar discloses to Edouard that he had had a premonition of a woman being murdered in a desert area. Meanwhile, the Tunisian architect and engineer Sadry Fahres (Franco Nero) has relationship problems with his spoiled wife Sylvia (Stefania Sandrelli), who refuses to visit her mother-in-law that is terminal. Sadry meets his former mistress Martine (Gila von Weitershausen) and she travels with him to visit his mother, rekindling their passion. Edouard observers the behavior of the trio of lover and decides to help the vision of Professor Vestar to come true, intriguing each one of them to force the murder."Les Magiciens" is a weird thriller by Claude Chabrol with a story of an idle man that decides to help a premonition of a clairvoyant to come true. The plot is original but this film is not among the best of Chabrol's filmography. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Profecia de um Delito" ("Profecy of a Crime")

First of all, "Death Rite" has great cult value: Claude Chabrol + Franco Nero + Goldfinger (i.e. Gert Frobe) are an once-in-a-lifetime combo. Couple this with the movie's relative obscurity, and I'm certainly glad I managed to track it down (on VHS). It's an unusual experiment from Chabrol, both visually (set in Tunisia) and thematically (a meditation on parapsychology and fate). The basic idea of the movie is that not only can you not change what is destined to happen, but your efforts to change it are actually part of the grand master plan of fate, and will only help lead to the inevitable outcome. The most enigmatic character in the movie is the "idle rich" Jean Rochefort: he is trying to manipulate the lives of the other characters and bring a secret love triangle out in the open, to no clear purpose except maybe being able to sit back and entertain himself with the (potentially deadly) drama playing in front of his eyes. The script is actually quite smartly constructed, but it may take you 2 viewings to realize that. Chabrol doesn't get to do as much cool stuff with his camera as usual, but he does stage one extremely suspenseful sequence about whether a small statue will fall to the floor or not! I can't say this is a fully satisfying movie, however I did find it more interesting than some of Chabrol's better known efforts. **1/2 out of 4.

This is yet another fine unsung (because obscure) gem from Chabrol, which shows him once again in rather experimental vein (particularly the elliptical editing) though sticking close in this case to his fortuitous genre i.e. the thriller. That said, I was alerted of its quality beforehand by the analogous rating given it by the "Cult Filmz" website, whereas the same reviewer had awarded the equally superb ALICE OR THE LAST ESCAPADE (1977) a measly **! DEATH RITE really shows off the director's affinity with the cinema of Fritz Lang: not only are balloons a key motif here a' la M (1931), but he even utilizes for one of the various protagonists in the film an actor (Gert Frobe) from Lang's swan-song – THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE (1960; actually one of a long-running series to which Chabrol himself would contribute an entry in 1990), with which this also shares a narrative concern in parapsychology! As ever, the French master does very well by his actors – particularly the afore-mentioned Frobe as a magician/clairvoyant (the original French title of this one was in fact LES MAGICIENS) and Jean Rochefort as a self-confessed member of the idle rich who becomes involved with his stage act (which includes a sawing-in-half routine the director would re-use 30 years later in the aptly-named A GIRL CUT IN TWO [2007]) and even 'helps', albeit behind Frobe's back, in the realization of a vision that is obsessing the latter! With this in mind, as indeed it is stated in the brief didactic prologue, the film attempts (via a fiendishly clever script) to rationalize the gift of second sight: could the alleged perception of future events somehow make one predisposed towards their ultimate accomplishment? The role-reversal twist at the end, then, recalls the shocking climax of DON'T LOOK NOW (1973); similarly, the Tunisian setting draws parallels with the work of Alain Robbe-Grillet (though largely eschewing its trademark obliqueness).Anyway, the rest of the principal cast features a typically intense Franco Nero, married to luscious Stefania Sandrelli (whose character began as atypically ditsy but gradually acquired maturity and scope), as well as Gila von Weitershausen (a former companion of French director Louis Malle here playing an ex-lover of Nero, a relationship that is eventually rekindled – following his estrangement from the belligerent Sandrelli who, in turn, is herself seduced by the Macchiavellian Rochefort!). Incidentally, in what appears to be a deliberate decision on the film-makers' part (though no allusion is ever made to this end), the latter quartet of actors bear strikingly similar physical features – with Nero and Rochefort both sporting a moustache, while Sandrelli and von Weitershausen are each given a frizzy hair-do! Finally, in view of the lackluster quality of the copy I acquired (marked by unsatisfactory English dubbing, fuzzy picture and hard-coded Greek subtitles), I regret not checking that of the film's recent broadcast on late-night Italian TV.

After "les noces rouges" (1973) , Chabrol's second period of barren inspiration began.Although adapted from a Frederic Dard novel (Robert Hossein's best film was a Dard novel: "Toi le Venin" ),"Les Magiciens " is a mediocre movie ,which was probably made to combine business with pleasure ( holidays in Tunisia in a luxury hotel).The plot: a conjurer explains to an idle dandy,Edouard, that he can predict a murder.Edouard will help make his prediction come true. The cast includes Jean Rochefort -a non chabrolesque actor- ,Gert "Goldfinger " Froebe,one of the few foreign actors which Chabrol did not have to dub in French ,and one of Bertolucci's favorites ,Stefania Sandrelli.That does not make a film for all that.