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.

 

When Works of Art Bewitch, Haunt ... and Judge

Detective Mark MacPherson is mesmerized by the portrait  of Laura Hunt. 

Noir anti-heroes often come from the wrong side of the tracks, and then struggle to brush off the dust from the old neighborhood. Lured by the trappings of the filthy rich — jewels, swell apartments, gorgeous babes — they cross the line into a saturnine world of deceit, plunder and sometimes murder, all in an ill-advised effort to reinvent themselves. And it usually ends badly.

One plaything of the well-heeled seen often in film noir is the painted portrait, a symbol of power and wealth, and sometimes the keystone of the noir drama’s plot. Portraits of women frequently turn up, sometimes echoing a character's desire to isolate and possess the sitter. Other times the subject of a painting seems to lord over a room, casting judgment on those who behold the artwork. 

In Otto Preminger’s “Laura” (1944), police Det. Lt. Mark McPherson (Dana Andrew) falls in love with the eponymous murder victim, Laura Hunt (Jean Tierney), whose portrait hangs over her living room mantelpiece. His frequent visits to the scene of the crime, the dead girl’s apartment, are part of his investigation, so he says. 

But while there, he compulsively sifts through her possessions, listens to her favorite recordings of romantic music and moons over the portrait. All the while Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb), a poison-tongued gossip columnist, chides the detective about “falling in love with a corpse.”

But the alluring portrait of the murdered woman has an unmistakable attraction for MacPherson, and the artwork is as much a character in the story as any of the living cast members. It also helps set the stage for a dramatic plot twist that comes halfway through the film. Under Laura's spell, MacPherson is suddenly snapped awake from his reverie as the story takes its unexpected turn. 

Gene Tierney, in 'Whirlpool'

In another Preminger noir, “Whirlpool” (1950), Anne Sutton (Jean Tierney, again), a psychiatrist’s wife, suffers from kleptomania and is hypnotized to treat her condition. Those around her consider her grasp of reality shaky at best.

Echoing “Laura,” a portrait of a deceased woman plays an outsized role in the film. Anne is blamed for the woman’s death, and the portrait, again, hung over the living room mantelpiece, seems to haunt the victim’s former residence — the piercing eyes of justice looking down on Anne, judging her and ready to pass sentence.

Joan Bennett, Edward G. Robinson,  
'The Woman in the Window.'

In Fritz Lang’s “The Woman in the Window,” Prof. Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson), a beloved university educator, lectures his students about ethical principles. One night, he finds himself in a quandary that throws his life into turmoil and causes him to question his own principles.

His burgeoning problems begin after he spies a painting of a beautiful woman on display in a gallery’s front window. The story takes a magical turn when the woman in the painting suddenly appears on the sidewalk next to him. 

The heralded professor eventually lands in the middle of a spiraling set of circumstances that threaten to envelop him like quicksand. For Wanley, the woman of his dreams, who seems to materialize out of the painting, is a siren lying in wait, ready to take possession of him.

Edward G. Robinson in ' Scarlet Street'

Likewise, in "Scarlet Street" (1945), Edward G. Robinson plays amateur artist Christopher "Chris" Cross, who gets mixed up with tawdry characters Katherine 'Kitty' March (Joan Bennett) and Johnny Prince (Dan Duryea) who exploit his creative talents. 

Kitty takes credit for Chris's paintings after an art critic gives the works a rave review. Chris, the meek artist, is unable to convince the world that he created the masterworks that are selling for large sums.

Paintings used in these films, however, aren't likely to command whopping prices at auction. In fact, some are hardly paintings at all. The portrait of Laura Hunt, for instance, was actually a varnished photograph of actress Jean Tierney, who played the ill-fated title character. 

Then, there's a downright silly example of art appearing in noir. A portrait, supposedly by Renaissance master Raphael, appears in "The Dark Corner" (1946) (also starring Clifton Webb). It's a left-handed imitation of the artist's work that wouldn't fool a child.

So, let's just call them what they are — movie props that tell a story of their own. They're not great works of art, but part of larger creative works — the films they appear in — that oftentimes achieve greatness in their own wright.