The American Friend (1977) on Netflix
NR19772h 5mCrimeMysteryThriller
Tom Ripley deals in forged art in Hamburg; picture framer Jonathan Zimmermann slights him at an auction. Asked by Raoul Minot to murder a gangster, Ripley names Zimmermann for the job.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.4/1021,554 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
Tom Ripley lives in Hamburg, where his money comes from forged paintings: he drives up the price of canvases by a painter believed dead but still producing new work. Picture framer Jonathan Zimmermann, who is dying of leukemia, refuses to shake his hand at one auction. The French criminal Raoul Minot asks Ripley to kill an American gangster. Ripley declines and names Zimmermann for the job instead, then spreads word that Zimmermann's illness has suddenly worsened. Minot offers Zimmermann a large sum to do the killing. Zimmermann turns him down at first, but he travels with Minot to France for a second medical opinion and, fearing he has little time left, accepts so that his wife Marianne and their son Daniel will be provided for.
Cast
- Andreas Dedeckeas Daniel
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The American Friend (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Wenders first wanted John Cassavetes to play the career criminal Tom Ripley, but Cassavetes turned the part down and suggested Dennis Hopper, who went on to star opposite Bruno Ganz's dying picture framer.
- A fan of Patricia Highsmith, Wenders wanted to film The Cry of the Owl or The Tremor of Forgery, but the rights were already sold; Highsmith then handed him the unpublished manuscript of Ripley's Game. He also lifted elements from Ripley Under Ground without owning the rights.
- Wenders gave the film a "natural" language scheme: Bruno Ganz's Jonathan Zimmermann speaks German with his family and his doctor but switches to English with Dennis Hopper's Ripley and while visiting Paris.
- Patricia Highsmith, author of the Ripley novels, flat-out rejected Dennis Hopper at first; after seeing the film a second time she was full of praise for him and wrote that Wenders's film captured the essence of Ripley better than any other.
