Finally getting hold of Studio Canal/Optimum World's excellent box set of auteur Henri-Georges Clouzot work,I discovered that along with 2 Clouzot movies that I've read a lot about,that there was a third Clouzot film that I've never heard of before!,which led to me deciding that it was time to take a glimpse at the unknown Clouzot.The plot:Catching everyone's attention on stage, Marguerite Chauffournier Martineau dreams of being a major star. Desperate to see her name in the bright lights, Marguerite starts getting very close to stage owner Georges Brignon.Less than happy with the advances his wife is making to Brignon, Maurice Martineau meets Brignon in public,and tells Brignon that if he sees him with Marguerite again,he will kill him.As the threat that Maurice made is left lingering in the air,Brignon is found brutally killed.Getting assigned the case,inspector Antoine soon discovers that Brignon was recently threatened with murder.View on the film:Returning to the champagne opened from his 1942 movie The Murderer Lives at Number 21,co-writer/(along with Jean Ferry) director Henri- Georges Clouzot and cinematographer Armand Thirard cloud the bright sparks of the past with the clouds of Film Noir.Going backstage,Clouzot gives the title a touch of old Hollywood glamour,by treating the Cabaret songs (!) and slap-stick antics with an elegant shine. Tearing away at the dazzle with Film Noir blades,Clouzot superbly aims for a stylish depth of field which pulls the darkness over the Lamour's into the limelight,which cracks the backdrop into dazzling shadows seeping Film Noir blood over the decadence.Adapting Stanislas-André Steeman's (then) out of print book from memory (!) the screenplay by Clouzot & Ferry strikes the murder mystery with a brittle Film Noir edge. Firmly placing the Martineau's in a light and fluffy showbiz world,the writers brilliantly criss-cross the "caper" genre into Film Noir,by cleverly cracking the Martineau's "caper" mind set with short,sharp shots of Film Noir reality.Finishing on a Christmas final,the writers thankfully make the path a far from merry one,due to the snow by swept away by Antoine tents investigation shattering the Martineau's pristine image.Enchanting everyone on stage, Suzy Delair gives a glorious performance as Femme Fatale Jenny Lamour,whose thirst for the bright lights Delair drinks up,with a delicacy to keep everyone else coiled round Jenny's fingers,which is displayed by Delair keeping Jenny fixated on the lights,even as Brignon's blood bleeds across the stage.Trying to break the silence, Louis Jouvet gives a great performance as Antoine,thanks to Jouvet pilling Film Noir tension on Antoine's shoulders to make cracks appear in the Martineau's icy relationship.Cast out into the wilderness, Bernard Blier gives an amazing performance as Maurice,who Blier locks into a pressure cooker of rage and doubt,as Maurice tries to keep Jenny in the limelight.

Clouzot followed Le Corbeau, where no one knew who was penning the poison thus everyone was suspected, with another masterpiece, Quai des Orfevres four years later in which we know from the outset (or think we do) whodunnit. Top-billed Louis Jouvet doesn't appear for forty minutes by which time Clouzot has established a rich milieu of Music Hall, music publishers, etc and a fine cast of colourful characters; Angela Lansbury lookalike (Lansbury appeared in Woman of Paris that same year) Suzy Delair scores as the chanteuse whose desire to improve her lot inspires the jealousy of her husband/accompanist Bernard Blier who follows her to the home of an elderly letch only to find he is already dead. From here things go seriously wrong, his car is stolen before he leaves the premises so his pre-arranged alibi is out the window whilst meanwhile, unknown to him, his wife confesses to the murder to the photographer neighbour, a closet lesbian in love with her, who volunteers to return to the crime scene and retrieve Delair's scarf and as long as she's there,thoughtfully wipes her prints of the murder weapon, a champagne bottle. At this point investigator Jouvet gets involved and from then on it's a case of keeping the plates spinning in the air. Clouzot's output was relatively small but virtually all of it was, as Spencer Tracey said in another context, 'cherce', with Le Salaire de peur and Les Diaboliques still to come. In short this is a must for French cinema buffs.

Great artists, always suffered while they were young. I could mention Mozart and Beethoven, but that is not the point. This movie was made by H-G Clouzot whose family wanted him to succeed in the Law professions.Its main star is Louis Jouvet who studied and practiced as as pharmacist before becoming "The Greatest Actor" and also director of France's Theater before and after WWII.They both had health problems. Clouzot had TB while young, Jouvet had cardiac problems and died on a theater..Such events shape the character of men (and women, of course). One might even say that today's Artists are so poor, because they had never suffered and fought for their lives.To me, this is the greatest of Clouzot's movies. "Wages of Fear" is greater in "suspense", "Diabolique" also has more "suspense" and a better plot and is more about "female evil".Quai des Orfèvres is more human. Clouzot was falsely accused by De Gaulle's entourage (mostly communists and Jews) of collaboration with the Nazis and banned from making films until until De Gaulle left France's Government in early 1946. De Gaulle came back in 1958, as President.The main characters are all good souls: Jenny L'Amour may perform as a "putain" on stage, but she is not a "whore" (dictionaires make synonyms of those words, but they are not the same), loves her husband, and refuses the slight "advances from her (presumably Lesbian) friend Dora, the photographer.Maurice the husband is jealous and timid, but runs away from the scene of the crime. He is a coward because he fell in love with a woman and traded an eventually more upscale career for love..Antoine, the detective (interpreted by the great Louis Jouvet, basically a stage actor, performs in this French "Gray" not Noir, as well as E.G. Robinson in "Double Indemnity") shows flair for pseudo criminals, tenderness for a Negro son(?), and compassion for the true author of the crime, because he remembers that is father cleaned the latrines at some nobleman's château!!Clouzot was capable of slapping an actor's face in order to put him in the right frame of mind, but deep inside he was very human. I have his horoscope in front of me. He had Venus in Sagittarius which means open-heartedness, devotion, charity and altruism. For those who do not believe in Astrology, my most sincere apologies...

What do you get when you have a tenacious, seasoned French police inspector by the name of Maurice Martineau is called to solve a murder case? Well, simply a very entertaining, fun film. The re-mastered black-and-white film "Quai des Orfevres" delivers the goods despite romance, jealousy and marriage that seem to just get in the way towards the truth of 'who done it?'Inch by inch, technique by technique as seasoned by experience and intuition, the patience of this master Inspector etches into the truth -- but of course, with the help of a bag full of dirty police interrogation tricks.Martineau is the centerpiece of this film. The use by director Henri-Georges Clouzot of raucous background music to intensify the drama in grand film noir style is a wonderful wrapper around the visual experience.Martineau eventually solves the mystery and arrests the culprit. Hey, he is good!! But alas, Martineau, too, can keep a dark secret in his past. Who is that boy that is perhaps not his son?Some things can never get solved -- even beyond the closing credits.