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| ENDED |
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  (1947)
Another bitter post-war Christmas is in the air as
saucy go-getter Suzy
Delair’s Jenny Lamour (“a voluptuous
slut” – Pauline
Kael) warms up an entertainment-starved Paris
music hall audience with a swing of her ineffably
euphemistic “tra-la-la,” part of the arsenal
of charms she uses in her breakthrough to the big
time. It also means suggestive publicity photos taken
by sympathetic lesbian photographer Simone Renant,
and a nocturnal meeting with sleazy movie financier
Charles Dullin (“the dirtiest old man on celluloid”
– David Shipman). Still, she swears fidelity
to her balding, congenitally jealous accompanist
husband Bernard
Blier (father of director Bertrand), who, convinced
she’s already hit the casting couch, issues
an all-too-public death threat against the old fogey.
So when Dullin winds up très mort,
Blier becomes Suspect No. 1 at the “Quai des
Orfèvres,” France’s Scotland Yard
equivalent. Enter the legendary Louis
Jouvet (“the greatest theater man of his
generation and one of the half-dozen great screen
actors” – Shipman)
as the gruff, slightly seedy, toothbrush-mustached
Maigret-like Inspector Antoine, who begins to take
apart Blier’s meticulous alibi... Brilliantly
transforming a classic whodunit plot, Gallic Master
of Suspense Henri-Georges
Clouzot takes us from the wings and dressing
rooms of the Parisian music hall and circus worlds
to the drab, airless corridors and holding cells
of the Quai’s Criminal Investigations Department,
in a blend of social realism and psychological cruelty
that became his trademark. One of the uncontested
masterpieces of the postwar French cinema, but rarely
seen here since its original U.S. release (as Jenny
Lamour), Quai des Orfèvres (pronounced
Kay Daze Or-FEHVR) is a Film Noir tour-de-force
that won Clouzot the coveted Best Director prize
at Venice, long before his more famous international
triumphs The Wages of Fear and Diabolique.
This new StudioCanal restoration refurbishes the
chiaroscuro sheen of Armand
Thirard’s brooding images and Max
Douy’s vivid production design, with brand
new subtitles by Lenny
Borger capturing the linguistic richness of Clouzot’s
dialogue. |
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QUAI DES ORFÈVRES
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 French Film Noir by Robin Buss |
Bob Le Flambeur DVD or VHS |
 Rififi DVD or VHS |
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