Directed by Julien Duvivier
France | 1946 | Fiction | 100 min | French w/subtitles
Film Source: Rialto
Sponsored by: Lorna-Kay Peal; Alliance Française of the Lake Champlain Region
"If I were an architect and I had to build a monument to the cinema," wrote Jean Renoir, "I would place a statue of Julien Duvivier above the entrance." Duvivier made 70 films between 1919 and 1967, many of them landmarks of French cinema. His first postwar project, a noir adaptation of Georges Simenon's “Mr. Hire's Engagement” (later adapted by Patrice Leconte as Monsieur Hire), stars Michel Simon as a reviled voyeur framed for a murder by the girl he adores. “Seeing it today in a beautifully modulated print should send shivers through audiences already worried about mob rule, enforced conformity, and a willingness to pin blame on anyone different” (Michael Sragow). *** Pierre Simenon, son of Georges, will introduce the film, and the screening will be followed by an in-person conversation with Mr. Simenon and Bruce Goldstein ***