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Ten Days' Wonder

Ten Days' Wonder

Movie · 1971 · 8 people

La Décade prodigieuse, known in English as Ten Days' Wonder, is a 1971 French-Italian co-production directed by Claude Chabrol. Described as a psychological thriller and a murder mystery, it runs about 110 minutes. Its Brazilian title is Dez dias fantásticos, its German one Der zehnte Tag and its Spanish one La década prodigiosa.

The film is based on Ellery Queen's 1948 novel Ten Days' Wonder. Ellery Queen was the shared pen name of two American detective writers, Daniel Nathan and Emanuel Lepofsky. Because the story is transposed to France, the novel's detective Ellery Queen is replaced as investigator by a new character, Paul Régis.

Michel Piccoli, Anthony Perkins, Marlène Jobert and Orson Welles take the leading roles. For Perkins it was a second outing with Chabrol, after The Champagne Murders (1967); Perkins and Welles had earlier worked together on several films, including Welles's own The Trial (1962). The cast also includes Vittorio Sanipoli, Guido Alberti, Dominique Zardi and Tsilla Chelton. Paul Gégauff co-wrote the screenplay and Pierre Jansen composed the music.

DirectorClaude Chabrol

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Cast

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Dominique Zardi Actor · died at 79 Tsilla Chelton Actor · died at 93 Michel Piccoli Anthony Perkins Orson Welles Marlène Jobert Vittorio Sanipoli Guido Alberti

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Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

The real curiosity of Ten Days' Wonder is its cast: bringing together performers from traditions as different as Welles, Perkins and Piccoli in one psychological thriller is a bold choice. That Perkins and Welles had already worked together on The Trial adds another layer to the encounter. Moving an Ellery Queen novel to France and replacing the detective with a new investigator is a risky adaptation decision. In my view the mechanics of the puzzle do not always keep pace with Chabrol's interest in character and setting; the more Gégauff's script invests in atmosphere, the further the riddle recedes. It gives more when watched as an actors' duel than as a mystery.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

A murder mystery adapted from an Ellery Queen novel sounds exciting on paper, but the psychological thriller label tells you this film invests in mind games rather than speed. If you want chases, quick cutting or big suspense set pieces, it may test your patience. Seeing Orson Welles and Anthony Perkins in the same story is intriguing, but for eyes used to today's thrillers the pace may feel slow.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Ten Days' Wonder is an interesting case of exchange between popular crime fiction and European art cinema. Knowing that two American writers stood behind the Ellery Queen name adds another interest to the adaptation: a co-written American puzzle tradition is carried to France in Chabrol's hands and even loses its detective. That choice raises the question of what a story keeps and what it drops when it moves into another culture. Being a French-Italian co-production that brings together actors from different countries also reflects the international make-up of European cinema at the time. For those who read crime fiction as part of literary and cultural history, it is a fertile ground for comparison.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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