You know you're in for some creative perversity when the opening scene in a movie finds a little boy falling to certain death from a speeding train, a horrifying event that has nothing really to do with the boy. Rather, it's in there to establish that an unruffled, zombie-like observer of the accident is an emotionally hollowed out survivor of the Holocaust. The mad, film noir tale that follows the train scene is similarly without ordinary bearings, its craziness enhanced by the obvious influence of Hitchcock's "Vertigo.". Ingrid Thulin, who starred in nine of Ingmar Bergman's best-known films ("Wild Strawberries," "Cries and Whispers') stars as Michele, a wealthy, Jewish doctor in Paris who falls for a ne'er-do-well, would-be chess champion, Stan (Maximilian Schell). Michele is arrested by Nazis and deported to the Dachau concentration camp, where she spends five nightmarish years fighting for survival. When she does not return to Paris following the end of the war, Michele is assumed to be dead. Years pass, and Stan is cohabitating with Michele's now-grown, embittered stepdaughter, Fabi (a very young Samantha Eggar). What follows feels like a couple of different narratives that prove random and ill-fitting together, including Michele's decision to dye her hair and pretend to be someone else to fool Stan (ergo the "Vertigo" comparison), followed by a cheesy murder plot involving a gun rigged to fire when a wall safe is opened (shades of "Columbo"). The real problem with the chunky, start-stop structure of the story is that screenwriter Julius J. Epstein and director J. Lee Thompson ("Cape Fear") exhaust the novelty in the principals' bizarre, three-way love affair (stepmom, stepdaughter, and amoral lover to both) early in the proceedings. The filmmakers simply can't figure out where to go with the emotional crossfire. Thompson, however, does some tremendous work with visual opportunities in multiple scenes, cramming as many shadows and people as he can into mesmerizingly bleak interiors. Actor Herbert Lom, a frequent performer in Thompson's films, is typically very good here as a doctor in love with Michele and disgusted by Stan. Lightly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (T. Keogh)