A Perfect Murder

Andrew Davis remakes a story out of Frederick Knott’s play, but the real change is the motive. Here the money is the wife’s: Emily owns a fortune of 100 million dollars while her husband Steven’s market positions are unravelling, so the murder stops being jealousy and becomes a cash problem. Steven picks his wife’s lover to carry it out, a man living under a painter’s identity, really an ex-convict who has conned wealthy women. Many of the canvases in that studio are Viggo Mortensen’s own work, and he appeared in a second Hitchcock remake the same year. David Suchet plays the detective, and Arabic is among the languages spoken. Shooting ran from October 1997 to January 1998 around New York; the couple’s apartment was filmed at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan and the family mansion at Salutation House on Long Island. The alternate ending on the Blu-ray changes the case. In the released version Steven attacks first and she really is defending herself. In the alternate take he never touches her; she shoots anyway, then wounds herself so it will look like self-defence. A good fit if you like comparing two endings built from the same event. Not for anyone seeking the restraint of the Hitchcock version; this one works with a meat thermometer and nine-figure sums.