SPOILERS

First I note that a reviewer thought the image and sound were poor, maybe as a result of post-war conditions in France. I have seen the Criterion blu-ray (Dec. 2018) and it is excellent in both regards. My question is how can the supposed alibi be logical? Killer says victim's watch broke when he murdered her, and he set the time back half an hour and then went to a cafe -- "air-tight alibi". I don't follow. Wouldn't setting her watch ahead be more to the point so the supposed time of death would be while he was in the cafe?

This is a pretty monumental film, impressing with clarity of picture, busyness of street action and immediacy of plot development right from the start. Indeed this, beautifully photographed film engages from the beginning and roars along from scene to scene and image to image to inform in the most economical of ways before gradually slowing down as the story deteriorates into something quite terrible. Viviane Romance plays the leading lady, who is anything but, with great style but is this true love? Or is this sheer greed or even true hatred that leads to such panic. The sad, suspenseful ending reminded me of Frankenstein's monster, Quasimodo and even poor old King Kong but the true aim here by the writer Simenon in his original book is surely his own country folk and their disgraceful behaviour during WW2. Frighteningly effective cinema.

A Filmsonor Production. French release: 15 January 1947. U.S. release through Film Rights International. New York opening at the Rialto: 26 November 1947. 91 minutes. Available on an L.C.J. Editions DVD. As the copyright expired in 1997, there is also a poor Public Domain DVD kicking around with hard-to-read English sub-titles.

SYNOPSIS: When you think about it and ask yourself some key questions, the plot doesn't make a great deal of sense, particularly as (in order to throw viewers off the scent) Duvivier has Vivian Romance play a key scene with the wrong reaction.

COMMENT: Duvivier's first film on returning to France after his wartime stint in the USA (during which he made one of my all-time favorite movies, Tales of Manhattan), in this superb thriller in which the atmosphere builds slowly but engrossingly into one of the most brilliantly staged climaxes the cinema has ever seen. In the lead role, Michel Simon plays with such presence and authority that we overlook the character's many unsympathetic qualities. He is well-matched by Viviane Romance who contrives to keep us hoping that she will land on the right side in the final reel. And among the support characters, even the smallest roles are cleverly individualized. Unlike many of the previous Simenon movies, this one has been produced on a really top-flight budget. Piménoff's sets and Hayer's noirish photography are outstanding.