A cheap plagiarism of "An American Tragedy"

Rating: 5/10 (27 September 2006)

The plot of this movie was uncannily similar to that of the 1925 novel, "An American Tragedy" by Theodore Dreiser. Allen just changed the setting from central NY state and the Adirondacks to London, changed the main characters M.O. (staged fake robbery instead of staged "accidental" drowning), and gave it a different ending (in the book the main character gets caught and is sentenced to the death penalty). The book was based on an actual murder in 1906 in which a man, Chester Gillette, killed his ex-girlfriend and tried to make it look like an accident. Gillette got the death penalty much like, Clyde Griffiths did in the book.
But coming from a morally bankrupt pedophile like Woody Allen, I'm not surprised that he would stoop to such blatant plagiarism. Nowhere in the credits did I see the original Dreiser novel referenced.
I gave the movie 5, because despite the plagiarism, I thought the film was well acted and I can't fault the actors for the blatant plagiarism.