Mitgift (1976)

An unusual love triangle is at the heart of this story. Alice and her lover Edgar have given her heart-diseased father, Senator Millinski, a fatal overdose of pills and now live off his fortune in his luxurious villa. But constant suspicion has steadily turned both their lives into a living hell. Alice, a beautiful young woman, first takes various lovers in secret, then increasingly openly. She eventually confides her greatest worry to her latest conquest, Kurt, an attractive, tall but poorly paid scientist: that Edgar might murder her one day. She is haunted by the suspicion that he wants to take revenge for all her misdeeds, affairs and full-blown liaisons. And indeed, Edgar has devised a cunning murder plot so he can become the sole owner of the vast fortune. He replaces her medicine with a poisonous substance, and the two travel to sunny Sorrento to recover from all the idleness at home. But Alice has already guessed what is going on, pretends to take her “medicine,” and plays dead. She comes back to life only at the morgue, but by then Edgar has already been arrested for murder and must serve time in prison. Kurt, too, is soon cast aside, and Alice drives off into an uncertain future, free of former lovers. On the way, she picks up a handsome young hitchhiker—her next affair. Careless in the euphoria of victory, Alice takes a sip from Edgar’s little bottle, which she had long since stopped paying attention to...