Murder, Suspense and Mystery Take Hold in Two Films by Master Storyteller Henri-Georges Clouzot

Simone Renant, "Quai des Orfèvres" A.K.A. "Jenny Lamour" (1947).

By Paul Parcellin

“Quai des Orfèvres” is a Gaulish police procedural that holds its own with any American made crime drama of that era. The title refers to the location of the central police headquarters in Paris, where some of the film's action takes place.

The story is uncomplicated enough to make it seem almost routine, but as the richly imagined characters waver between loyalty and betrayal of each other, dramatic tension rises to the breaking point. 

Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair), a music hall performer, is determined to succeed in the theater. Her mild mannered husband, Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier), who is also her accompanist, gets jealous when she flirts with Brignon (Charles Dullin), an old, lecherous businessman who claims he can help her get movie roles.

The normally staid Maurice blows his stack one night and threatens to kill Brignon as a number of witnesses observe his tirade. When Jenny secretly visits Brignon in his apartment one night, Maurice catches wind of the rendezvous and heads off to find them, planning to murder the old man, and perhaps Jenny, too.

But instead of busting in on an adulterous affair, Maurice comes upon a bloody murder scene. He flees, but things immediately go wrong. Enter veteran murder investigator Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet), and his world-weary eyes spy Maurice as the guilty man. 

Under the seasoned inspector’s scrutiny, Maurice’s alibi develops cracks. A handful of suspects are questioned and we get a taste of Antoine’s dark methods of squeezing out information and forcing witnesses to give false testimony.

Henri-Georges Clouzot, whose works include “The Wages of Fear” (1953) and “Les Diaboliques” (1955) (see below), co-wrote and directed “Quai des Orfevres,” and he peppers his scenes with background talent in handfuls of short comic vignettes, piling them into a music hall auditorium and the Paris police station. 

Like Hitchcock, Clouzot has a nice touch directing crowds as well as more intimate scenes. The cast is outstanding, and “Quai des Orfevres” marks the final screen performance  of Parisian stage legend Charles Dullin as Brignon.

Véra Clouzot, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Les Diabolique (1955).

Found on YouTube …

Speaking of Henri-Georges Clouzot, “Les Diaboliques,” which he directed and co-wrote, is available free on YouTube, both in dubbed English and in French with English subtitles. 

The mark of a great thriller can be measured by its capacity to hold our attention despite its implausibilities. “Les Diaboliques” is rich in improbable twists but it draws us in with an intoxicating tale of a love triangle among the staff of a French private boarding school for boys. 

The bullying Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) runs the school, which is owned by his frail wife, Christina (Véra Clouzot, the real-life wife of the director). Michel is having and affair with a teacher at the school, Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret) and Christina is aware of the her husband’s extramarital shenanigans. 

But she and Nicole maintain a civil relationship and are united by their mutual hatred of Michel. The tyrannical Michel beats Nicole and taunts Christina about her heart condition. He’s also pretty awful to the pupils unfortunate enough to be stranded at this third-rate academy. 

Nicole devises a plan in which she and Christina will do away with Michel, and despite their jitters they do a remarkably efficient job of eliminating their tormentor. But then there’s a body to deal with, and the tension that goes with committing a crime in plain sight is nearly unbearable, particularly for Christina.

Worse still, Alfred Fichet (Charles Vanel), a retired senior policeman now working as a private detective, is gently insistent on joining the investigation into Michel’s disappearance. For Nicole and Christina, it’s a bit like trying to cover up a murder and then finding that Lt. Columbo has appeared on the scene. And if that’s not bad enough, events take a left turn at the end that upends everything we think we know.

Gene Tierney, Judith Anderson, "Laura" (1944).

The Otto Preminger directed “Laura” (1944), starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews is one of noir’s crown jewels. There are at least a couple more made for TV knockoffs of the original. One, made in 1968 stars Lee Radziwill, the younger sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She was roundly roasted for her weak performance in the title role. I made a brief YouTube search for the 1960s show but turned up nothing. It’s probably available somewhere and I’ll look a bit harder for it another time. 

An earlier television remake titled “A Portrait of Murder” (1955) is free on YouTube, and it isn’t half bad. The cast includes Dana Wynter as Laura Hunt, George Sanders as Waldo Lydecker, Robert Stack as Mark McPherson and Scott Forbes as Shelby Carpenter. 

Like the noirs turned into truncated radio plays in the 1940s and ’50s, this “Laura” is around an hour of highly watchable television, although it can’t hold a candle to the original. If you’re a “Laura” fan you might enjoy it. As I mentioned, I haven’t seen the 1968 production, and from all indications from those who have,  it’s just as well to keep it that way.

 

Lovesick Wanderer Returns ... to a Double Cross

Burt Lancaster, Yvonne DeCarlo, "Criss Cross" (1949).

This article contains spoilers.

By Paul Parcellin

The magnetic attraction between Steve Thompson (Burt Lancaster) and Anna (Yvonne DeCarlo) is the stuff that drives “Criss Cross” toward its dramatic and deadly conclusion. Steve returns to town after two year’s absence and the first thing on his mind is rekindling their romance. In fact, it’s probably the only reason that he returned. As much as he tries to convince himself that he’s not interested in seeing Anna again we know it’s just a matter of time before the two get together. 

They’re the volatile kind of couple that seems to thrive on getting into scraps, making up and starting the cycle over again. Complicating matters is gangster Slim Dundee (Dan Duryea), who is also pursuing Anna’s affections. We believe in Anna’s sincere feelings for Steve, and just when it seems that they’re going to pick up the pieces of their broken marriage — they divorced two years previously — they quarrel and she runs off to Yuma with Slim to get hitched. It’s a revenge marriage, perhaps, or maybe it’s all about the money, but one thing’s certain: there’s precious little warmth between her and her gangster hubby.

That should have been the end of their love triangle, but she and Steve can’t seem to stay away from each other. In voice-over he says it’s fate that keeps bringing them together, and for a while it seems that way. By chance, he glimpses her at Union Station seeing Slim off on an extended trip and that’s enough to set the wheels in motion for a disastrous outcome. Like Lancaster’s role as Swede in “The Killers” (1946), he plays an affable but naive gadabout who is putty in the hands of the people around him whom he mistakenly thinks he can outsmart.

Steve, we learn, has many good qualities, but sound judgment isn’t one of them. He can’t resist getting involved with Anna, despite efforts of Steve’s mother and his longtime buddy Det. Lt. Pete Ramirez (Stephen McNally), who feed him well meaning advice that he stubbornly ignores. 

There’s something boyish about Lancaster’s Steve. We see it when he returns home and throws a ball to his dog and romps like a school kid after dismissal from class. He overlooks the long-term consequences of his actions when it’s extremely unwise to do so. Getting involved with a gangster’s wife is the beginning of his downfall, and when Dundee catches Steve and his wife together, Steve dreams up a heist scheme on the spot to explain why the two of them are alone upstairs. Steve works for an armored car company and he’s got a bright idea about robbing a truck he’ll be guarding when it’s full of payroll cash. 

DeCarlo, Dan Duryea, an uneasy marriage.

It’s a bold move and almost comically unthinkable for someone as devoid of criminal experience as is Steve. But it’s also a clever move considering that he pulls it out of thin air just to save his hide. Dundee wants to know why he’s coming to him for help and Steve bluntly answers that he’s the only crook he knows. Dundee is taken aback but still interested. 

This turn of events abruptly shifts the film’s tone from a tale of clandestine love to a straight-up heist movie. Dundee is well aware of the shenanigans going on behind his back, but is intrigued by the possibility of scoring a lot of cash, and he has plans for Steve once the robbery is over. Of course, Steve has plans for Dundee, and the outcome of this caper hinges on who is more successful in double crossing the other.

Apart from the tense give and take among the main characters who appear along side a bevy of terrific character actors, the city of Los Angeles is a character in itself. Director Robert Siodmak makes the most of the once stately homes that serve as a backdrop to the story. The old neighborhood Steve returns to is the Bunker Hill section of the City of Angels, a setting for many a noir. For appreciators of the city’s architecture that decades ago fell to the wrecking ball, “Criss Cross” is a stunning timepiece that treats us to tasty morsels of vintage eye candy. 

Stairways leading to double- and triple-decker dwellings, looming Victorian homes that are just this side of shabby and the views of City Hall and its surroundings could make anyone nostalgic for the Los Angeles of decades ago, even if they were born long after those once-majestic buildings were leveled. There’s even a scene in a rundown apartment with Dundee’s mob working out the details of a robbery in which we see through the windows in the background the two cars of the Angels Flight funicular gliding up and down the steep incline of Bunker Hill. 

The film opens with a nighttime aerial view of Los Angeles City Hall, the towering building that then also housed the L.A. Police Dept. It seems ever present in the background, a kind of center of gravity around which the characters in this story orbit. It also serves as a reminder that justice is awaiting those who follow criminal pursuits. 

Siodmak’s non-linear way of telling the story begins with the camera panning across the flickering lights of the city, bringing us to a dance hall parking lot where Steve and Anna are carrying on a clandestine affair while Dundee waits inside for Anna. 

We get the setup in short order. Anna and Dundee are married, there’s a big job worth six figures in the works and Dundee is more than a bit suspicious that Steve is after his wife. Later, we see Steve driving toward a rendezvous spot where the armored car stickup will take place. Then in a long flashback sequence we see what brought him to this juncture in his life. 

Burt Lancaster, Tom Pedi, caught in the crossfire.

The film’s final portion focuses on the robbery’s aftermath and the duplicitous Anna, who bears the responsibility of causing Steve’s downfall. But is she really deserving of the blame? Considering that the robbery wasn’t her idea and that the choices that she’s left with are not good, she opts to save herself and that’s probably not a bad idea. Steve, the romantic, says he never cared about the heist money, he only wanted to be with her. But then there’s Dundee to contend with, who, like Steve, sustained severe wounds in the botched robbery. Wounded or not, Dundee is coming after them and she decides to grab the dough and split. 

Up to that point we never doubt her feelings for Steve, but when the chips are down she observes “You have to watch out for yourself.” It’s a cold slap in the face to Steve, but her moment of clarity comes a little too late and she pays the price for not being more discriminating about the company she keeps. So does Steve. It’s not the heroic ending that Hollywood movies normally proffer, but it’s consistent with noir’s cold, cynical view of the world. Like Steve, we don’t see Anna’s true nature until death comes knocking at the door. Then all bets are off.

 

The Big Caper: Burning Desire For a Life of Luxury Drives Career Criminal to Score a Cool Million Bucks

Roxanne Arlen, Paul Picerni, Corey Allen, "The Big Caper" (1957).

Heist films must always be centered around a carefully thought-out plan — and no matter how artfully arranged, the scheme will sooner or later go horribly wrong.

Lots of stuff can cause a heist to crash and burn: a flaw in the plan; unforeseen circumstances; somebody accidentally trips an alarm — you’ve probably seen them all. 

But the most interesting kind of heist failure occurs when gang members' weaknesses cause it to happen. One is a big mouth, another has a hot temper and yet another has an uncontrolled addiction, all of which causes friction that punches a hole in the entire operation. “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) and “The Killing” (1956) are two high-water marks in the American heist sub-genre, and both are like case studies of each character’s flaws. “The Big Caper” (1957) is a kindred spirit, but not in the same league as the other two.

In "The Big Caper," career criminal Frank Harper (Rory Calhoun) will eventually confront the same fate that other hoodlums before him have met. Like many others, his desire for material comfort and freedom motivates him to go for the big score. He's every bit the cool character as he drives a shiny Chrysler during the opening credits. He yearns to be seated in the lap of luxury, or at least flush with cash now that he dropped his last couple of thousand bucks at the track. He drools over the swank Southern California home that racketeer Flood (James Gregory) is renting. Poolside at Flood’s lair, Frank is all business while secretly coveting the senior gangster’s upper middle class lifestyle, including his blond bombshell of a girlfriend, Kaye (Mary Costa), who’s in taking a dip.

 Frank wants Flood to pony up the cash he needs to do a big job. A former Marine who was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Frank knows that the Corps’ payroll is regularly kept in a small bank near the base. More than $1 million in cash can be had if they play their cards right. Flood is hesitant, but is eventually persuaded to finance the operation and provide his connections to crime specialists.

The plan is that Frank and Kaye will pretend to be husband and wife, buy a filling station and a home in the community and blend in with the local citizens. When the time is right Frank's crew will crack open the bank vault and make off with the dough. 

The scheme sounds foolproof, as do most heist movie plots, but the difficulty comes in the execution. For one thing, putting Frank and Flood’s girl together, posing as man and wife, is like playing with matches near a leaky gas pipe.

Within a few months Frank and Kaye have mingled their way into the community, making friends with other couples in their neighborhood. They’re even pals with the cop on the beat. But their manufactured image of suburban contentment is as staged and hollow as pictures in a Sears catalogue. 

Why the big charade is needed as part of the robbery scheme is never clear, but it puts Frank and Kaye together in a domestic setting and their lace curtain existence together begins to have an effect on both. Kaye is unhappy being Flood’s girl, and pretending to live in matrimonial bliss makes her crave the real thing. She tells Frank that she plans to split with Flood. 

“Hope I’m not around when you decide to break the news to him,” he growls. 

Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa: An Imitation of Domestic Bliss. 

She’s not the only one feeling the itch of desire. He struggles to keep his relationship with Kaye on a strictly business track, but it’s only a matter of time before the wall he puts up develops cracks. Frank can barely stand running the filling station and earning peanuts. It’s for squares, he says. When neighbors are around he’s all smiles, but can hardly wait to pull the caper and blow town.

Pulling the robbery requires rounding up the manpower get the job done; a heist movie staple. Roy (Corey Allen), Flood’s blonde, musclebound houseboy and henchman is odd and unpredictable. He appears to have a sadomasochistic relationship with his boss — Flood whips him for showing his muscles to Kaye (could this have anything to do with Flood’s blasé attitude toward her?). Roy’s hackles are raised when Doll (Roxanne Arlen), the cupie doll girlfriend of another mobster, shows up, breaking the crew’s guys-only policy. Soon enough, she burrows her way into the caper and becomes a threatening annoyance to Flood.  

Old man Dutch Paulmeyer (Florenz Ames), expert in the art of blowing open safes with nitro, joins the pack. Respected among his peers and near retirement, he speaks with an accent and is the consummate gentleman thief. 

His diametric opposite, Zimmer (Robert H. Harris), an arsonist and hard-core boozer, stumbles onto the scene. Sweating profusely, dressed in a panama hat, white linen suit and a loud, wide tie, it’s clear that he’s going to be trouble. He’s a pyromaniac who strikes wooden matches and stares dreamy eyed into the flame as though he’s getting an erotic rush from it. There’s dynamite and a timer in his suitcase and he’s got an unquenchable thirst for gin — what could go wrong?

Quite a lot, actually. Especially when Frank and Kaye learn that there’s a very big problem with Zimmer’s plans to set off a diversionary explosions as part of the robbery plan.

Frank is finally left on his own to struggle with his conscience, knowing that the crew’s big score will do irreparable damage to the community that he once ridiculed. The film seems to ask whether or not an antisocial cynic can transform himself into righteousness simply by going through the motions of living a clean life and accidentally finding love. It takes more than that, of course, but Frank Harper is a hard-core case who just might have a soft center.  

A Cache of Hot Money Fires Up ‘Private Hell 36’

Det. Jack Farnham (Howard Duff) and wife Francey (Dorothy Malone)
in 'Private Hell 36' (1955).

We’re in a New York City office building. A pair of elevator doors open and a dead man is sprawled on the floor inside. Another, wearing an elevator operator’s uniform, exits and disappears into the night with a satchel of loot — $300,000, to be exact.

The blunt, factual opening sequence coupled with voiceover narration gives “Private Hell 36” the feel of a police procedural, initially, at least. The story moves abruptly from New York to Southern California, not the breezy, palm-tree shaded Los Angeles that delights tourists, but in a shadowy, claustrophobic urban landscape that’s as confining as any sprawling East Coast city.

Some of the money stolen in New York has turned up in the City of Angels and two L.A. Police detectives are tracking it down. Cal Bruner (Steve Cochran), the younger of the pair, is freewheeling and a bit reckless. His partner, Jack Farnham (Howard Duff), is a family man and the picture of responsibility. In contrast to the risk-taking Cal, Jack worries that he could leave his wife a widow and his young daughter fatherless. 

While the two have a collegial relationship and seem to make a good team, it’s likely that their differing styles will sooner or later cause friction.  Sure enough, money and a woman are destined to come into the picture and disturb their equilibrium.

At the Scene of a Crime
When we meet Cal, he’s stumbled upon a robbery in progress and rather than call for backup, he takes the risky step of halting the burglars single-handedly. Gunfire erupts and he kills one robber, and after a raucous fistfight, subdues, pummels and arrests the other. With his penchant for gratuitous violence, Cal clearly harbors a world of suppressed anger that drives his impulsive behavior.

Later at the station house his boss, Capt. Michaels (Dean Jagger), an apt judge of character, warns him against taking unnecessary risks, a tip that Cal brushes off, just as he does the news that a fellow policeman has died in action. That he’s so blasé about the killing of another law man says a lot about his detachment from the reality of police work. It’s easy to take him as a fatalist, believing that death is inescapable once your number’s up. But his arrogant posture suggests that beneath his risk-taking bravado he believes firmly in his own infallibility.

Steve Cochran and Evney Serovich —
heavy-handed persuasion.

Meanwhile, Cal slaps the robber around as he’s questioning him at headquarters, as is probably his standard operating procedure. When asked for his address, the prisoner mutters that he’s a “transient.” That’s a term some would use to disparagingly describe Southern California’s populace — rootless, shady, on the move and restless for change, in contrast to stable, Middle America, with its “traditional values.” It also sums up the contrasts between the two detectives, Jack being the dependable, traditional one, while Cal is dwells among the impatient, rootless, vaguely dissatisfied fringe of society.

Steve Cochran’s Cal has a more internalized sinister edge than accused murderer Bill Clark, whom he portrayed in “Tomorrow Is Another Day” (1951). Unlike the reactive Bill Clark, a fugitive from justice who digs himself into a deeper hole when confronted with bad breaks and unfair treatment, Cal’s dark impulses compel him to tempt fate. He’ll lie dormant until the right circumstances come along, then ditch his present identity and move on to an idealized life in a distant land.

'Wrong People Got Framed' 
While chasing after the stolen money Cal meets lounge singer Lilli Marlowe (Ida Lupino), who has a low opinion of cops. She once cooperated with the law and “the wrong people got framed.” Working for tips and living a low-rent life, she wears a flashy faux diamond bracelet and carries a fake gold cigarette holder, but wants real diamonds and gold someday soon. Cal takes a shine to her and eventually, after aggressive, slightly creepy pursuit, breaks down her resistance and they become an item. Lilli’s outlook brightens when she’s with Cal, but like him she’s uninterested in a committed relationship. She brushes off the topic of marriage with noir-appropriate sarcasm — rice is for eating, not for throwing.

Howard Duff, Ida Lupino and Steve Cochran
scan the crowd at Hollywood Park.

The trail of the cash brings the two detectives to Hollywood Park racetrack with Lilli in tow. A customer tipped her a hot $50 bill and she’s eyeballing the crowd in search of the chiseler. Once again, we’re confronted with a view of Los Angles that offer little relief from the confining walls and swelling crowds of the city. Racetracks are, of course, a noir-infused environment. You can practically smell the stogie smoke floating in the breeze. A crush of spectators makes the racing oval seem no less confining than city avenues lined with granite skyscrapers that block out natural light. 

Stakeout Pays Off
After days of wandering through the crowd and searching for the heavy tipper she spots him and a car chase ensures. Cal and Jack are in close pursuit, tires screeching on winding canyon roads. The perp drives over the edge of a cliff and lands at the bottom of a valley and the two detectives hike down into the canyon to investigate — it’s probably the first open, unconfined space we’ve seen them in and it’s outside the watchful eyes of the public. The suspect is dead and an open box of money was ejected in the crash. Dollar bills waft across the ravine, and the two detectives are on it, quickly scooping up the loot. But what to do about it?

Howard Duff and Steve Cochran
discover a box filled with loot.

Cal doesn’t hesitate to avail himself of this quirk of fate, we could suppose, because he feels entitled to extra rewards for the risks he faces as a cop — of course, the greater danger he encounters are often due to unwise chances he seems compelled to take. His determination to provide the materialistic Lilly with luxurious baubles allows him to further justify his morally unsound actions. 

Jack stands on shaky ground. He’s torn between duty and loyalty to his partner. It’s plain to see that he’s tempted to go along with Cal and take the cash but it goes against every fiber of his being. The money, blowing in the breeze, no less, represents freedom that’s there for the taking. It’s hard not to think of the bank notes churned up by airplane propellers and blowing away from Sterling Hayden in the final scene of “The Killing” (1956) as he grimly watches his last chance of starting life anew go down the drain.

Living in Cramped Quarters
Cal and Jack exist in downscale claustrophobic spaces, far from the prosperous suburbs where others have achieved the American dream. Their situation is reminiscent of GIs who live in relative poverty after risking their lives overseas in World War II and in Korea. A telling moment occurs when, during a dinner party at Jack’s home a loose coffee table leg pops off and he quickly fits it back into place. His reaction lingers between humiliation and fury. Embarrassed that his household is so obviously shabby, Jack’s angrily determined to keep his hands off the hot money and feels powerless to stop Cal from stealing it. His silence is the private hell in which he lives, tamping back his frustrations with a bottle of whiskey.

Cal stashes the money at a trailer park, in a unit he’s renting — it’s trailer number 36, hence the movie’s title. They’re the kind of camper trailers that families tow to Yosemite and other outdoorsy destination, the perfect vehicle for the mobile, rootless lifestyle that he wants. 

Ida Lupino and Steve Cochran.

Cal and Lilli edge toward marriage, and Lilli’s values begin to change. The security of a lasting relationship seems within her reach, and her disdain for matrimony dissipates as does her shallow materialistic outlook. Cal doesn’t change. Morally corrosive materialism has only made him sink deeper into the abyss to the point where he’s willing to commit murder to make a clean getaway. 

Jack wants to come clean and Cal is vehemently against returning the loot he’s pocketed.

Capt. Michaels sees through the consternation emanating from the two detectives and intuits that something troubling is going on. We can see the wheels turning inside his head as he watches their petty squabbles escalate. 

Cal receives an anonymous threatening phone call from a third party who was involved in the New York heist who knows that the detective is holding the money. He tells Lilli that they need to leave for Acapulco immediately — she’s in the dark about the stolen loot.

On the Run
The film’s climax occurs at the trailer park, the symbolic homeland of middle-class nomadic dreams, further heightening the permanent vs. transient battle being symbolically being waged. Cal lives in a world where one can take advantage of an illicit opportunity, run to Acapulco and live in luxury, and he’s now willing to kill if it’ll ensure he gets what he’s after. 

But sooner or later a risk-taker’s luck is liable run out, and we discover, to paraphrase noir novelist Jim Thompson, that things aren’t what they seem to be. That may be the only immovable truth we’re likely to encounter in this, Cal’s private hell.