Es el crimen perfecto (¿o quiero decir crimen ferpecto?)

Just what is the title of the new Álex de la Iglesia film that opened in the United States this month? It appears that even the U.S. distributor can't give the perfect answer to that question.
 
This much is clear: The film was released in Spain last October as El crimen ferpecto (note the misspelling of the final word). But for some inexplicable reason, the title was changed to El Crimen Perfecto (no misspelling) for its U.S. release. Maybe the distributor, Vitagraph Films, figures that American viewers aren't sophisticated enough to figure out the play on words.
 
It may be a matter of low-budget operations, or perhaps of internal debate in the film distribution company, but even Vitagraph's publicity materials for the film don't keep the matter straight. They include not only the perfecto and ferpecto spellings, but also the English titles of "The Perfect Crime" and "The Ferpect Crime."
 
In any case, the film is one of the very few Spanish-language films to be released in the United States this year that has received significant critical acclaim. The black comedy tells the story of department store salesman Rafael (played by Guillermo Toledo), who accidentally kills his boss. The only person aware of the incident is a co-worker, Lourdes, played by Mónica Cervera, who uses that knowledge to sexually blackmail him. Rafael doesn't find Lourdes attractive and decides to end the coerced relationship the only way he knows how — by committing the perfect (or is that "ferpect"?) crime.
 
The choice of title for the film comes from a store scanner that misspells the title of the crime novel "Dial M for Murder," which is known as El crimen perfecto in Spanish.
 
The confusion should come as no surprise to de la Iglesia, who prefers the intentionally misspelled title. In one interview last year, he said, "Es un título con error tipográfico incluido. Soy consciente de que van a corregir en la mayoría de los medios en los que se hable de la película." ("It's a title with a typographical error included. I'm aware that it is going to be corrected in most of the media in which they talk about the film.")
 
The film opened Aug. 19 in New York and August 26 in Los Angeles. It is scheduled to open in other major U.S. metropolitan areas in September. It has been released without a rating; it includes strong sexual content. A trailer and more information about the film are available from Vitagraph. You can also read About.com Guide Rebecca Murray's review of the film here.