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Games

Sep. 17, 1967

01:40:00

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Overview:

Wealthy and bored, Paul (James Caan) and Jennifer Montgomery (Katharine Ross) while away their hours in a New York City apartment filled with pinball machines and other amusements. The couple's routine is upended when door-to-door saleswoman Lisa Schindler (Simone Signoret) drops by and is suddenly taken ill. The Montgomerys let her spend the night. And soon, the sophisticated Lisa and her hosts embark on a new set of very adult -- and very dangerous -- games.

Director: Curtis Harrington

Writer: George Edwards, Curtis Harrington, Gene R. Kearney

Cast: Kent Smith, Don Stroud, Eddra Gale, ...

Genre: Thriller

Description

Businessman Paul Montgomery and his heiress wife Jennifer are two wealthy, but blasé, Upper East Side New York socialites with an attitude sometimes accompanying the over-privileged: a propensity to amuse themselves in a bizarre, chic, and upscale fashion. They frequently host parlor tricks and other social games for their peers at their spacious townhouse, occasionally revealing what appears to be a playfully sadistic streak.

Lisa Schindler, an older German woman, arrives at their door one day selling cosmetics. After she nearly faints and falls ill, Jennifer agrees to let her spend the night. The couple take a liking to Lisa, who professes to have psychic abilities, and Jennifer asks her to arrange some "games" for their amusement. Lisa proceeds to set up several situations of simulated domestic discord that the couple can react to, among them being a staged affair between Jennifer and the grocery deliveryman, Norman. Paul is initially enraged upon finding Norman in the couple's bedroom, but is bemused when Lisa appears, revealing it to be a phony setup.
Ross as Jennifer in the finale of Games

When Norman delivers groceries the next day, Paul witnesses him make a romantic advance toward Jennifer. Paul threatens him with a revolver, and fires the gun at him, but it discharges blanks. Paul and Jennifer begin to laugh, revealing to Norman they are only joking. Paul playfully fires the gun again, but this time it shoots Norman in the head, killing him. In a panic, Paul stores Norman's bloodied corpse in a small elevator in the home, and Jennifer sends Lisa to the drugstore to purchase a salve to divert her.

That night, Jennifer drugs Lisa with a sedative so Paul can decide how to dispose of Norman's body. He ultimately chooses to encase it in plaster, posing it as a new statue among the couple's collection. In the morning, Lisa does a tarot reading for Jennifer, drawing the Death card, which upsets her. Late in the night, Lisa approaches Jennifer, confiding in her that she senses a ghost in the house. In the parlor, Jennifer is horrified to see an apparition of Norman with a bullet through his eye.

Lisa departs in the morning after a confrontation with Paul, and Paul heads to Maine on a business trip, leaving Jennifer alone. While watching television, Jennifer hears noises in the house, and the electricity goes out. In the kitchen, she sees the figure of a man approaching, resembling Norman. She swiftly enters the elevator and ascends upstairs, where she attempts to use the telephone, but finds it disabled. Norman enters the room and approaches Jennifer, his eye bloodied, and she fearfully shoots him several times, killing him. Paul enters the room moments later, and removes a prosthetic piece from Norman's eye. Paul calmly phones the police, reporting that his wife has committed a murder. Jennifer realizes she has been set up by Paul and manipulated into killing someone so he can inherit her fortune; Norman, who agreed to participate, was an unwitting casualty.

After Jennifer's arrest, Paul and Lisa share a celebratory drink as Paul gives her a ten-percent cut of Jennifer's fortune. As they have their drinks, Paul soon begins to feel ill. Realizing Lisa has poisoned his drink, he collapses moments later and dies. Lisa leaves the townhouse with a briefcase full of the money

Director: Curtis Harrington