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Quai des Orfevres - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Director: Henri-georges Clouzot
Actors: Suzy Delair, Bernard Blier, Louis Jouvet, Simone Renant, Pierre Larquey
Studio: Criterion
Category: DVD
Buy New: $42.00
New (16) Used (7) Collectible (1) from $38.97
Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 69241
Format: Black & White, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Ntsc
Languages: French (Original Language), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 070
ISBN: 0780026551
UPC: 037429176924
EAN: 9780780026551
ASIN: B00008RH15
Theatrical Release Date: March 5, 1948
Release Date: May 27, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
Though dressed in the guise of a murder mystery, Quai des Orfèvres is a rich, engrossing character study in which murder plays a secondary role. Six years before the triumph of The Wages of Fear, director Henri-Georges Clouzot couldn't find a copy of his source novel (Légitime Defense, by Stanislas-André Steeman), so he crafted this stylish police procedural from spotty memory, infuriating the author while freeing himself to explore the depths of his all-too-human characters. Using atmospheric Parisian locations and shadowy compositions that rival anything in American film noir, Clouzot gives plausible alibis to the prime suspects--a dancehall chanteuse, her suspicious husband, and a fashionable lesbian photographer--while a seasoned detective (played to perfection by Louis Jouvet) efficiently sorts through the clues. Anyone expecting thrills will be disappointed: Clouzot's fascination with human behavior prevails, and this subtle mix of motives and secrets is delicately balanced with underworld cynicism and a compassionate understanding of the human heart. --Jeff Shannon
Description
Blacklisted for his daring "anti-French" masterpiece, Le Corbeau, Henri-Georges Clouzot returned to cinema four years later with the 1947 crime fiction adaptation, Quai des Orfevres. Set within the vibrant dancehalls and historic crime corridors of 1940s Paris, ambitious performer Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair), her covetous piano-playing husband Maurice Martineau (Bertrand Blier), and their devoted confidante Dora Monier (Simone Renant) attempt to cover one another's tracks when a sexually ogreish high-society acquaintance is murdered. Enter Inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet), whose seasoned instincts lead him down a circuitous path in this classic whodunit murder mystery.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 The low life February 3, 2008
Jay Dickson (Portland, OR)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1948 police procedural, also exhibited under the title JENNY LAMOUR, is a beautifully constructed look into the lives of the lower depths of Paris just after the war, where millionaires go slumming and rub elbows with pornographers, petty thieves, and vaudeville performers. As with his later LES DIABOLIQUES, Clouzot focuses mainly on an odd little ménage á troi: Jenny Lamour (the astonishingly carnal Suzy Delair), a music-hall songstress and femme fatale; her nebbishy husband and accompanist Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier, looking like Bob Newhart); and Dora Monier (Simone Renant), their photographer friend who dabbles in pornography and who yearns for Jenny (but sleeps with Maurice). All three of them one night secretly visit the crime scene of a murder of the loathsome elderly capitalist (Charles Dullin) who makes advances towards Jenny: the film shows you how they attempt to cover their tracks, and then how a seedy gumshoe on the Paris police force (Louis Jouvet) undoes all their work. You wind up rooting for the trio. despite their bad behaviors towards one another, because the murdered man was so despicable, yet you also understand the detective's impassioned defense of police work, even though the Paris police here abuse their suspects' civil rights and employ all kinds of questionable tactics.
A film like this depends wholly on its director and its actors, and in this regard it could not be better. Clouzot has often been compared to Hitchcock for his dark view of human relations, his interest in generating extreme suspense, and his poor treatment of his actors (though like Hitchcock he often prompted amazing performances from them). Although all four principals are terrific, it's as hard to keep your eyes off of Clouzot's Jenny, Suzy Delair, as it is for everyone around her character in the film. The French dialogue is admirably tough and coarse, which enhances the naturalistic sense of probing the Parisian lower depths.
 A great comeback of H.G. Cluozot September 26, 2007
Galina (Virginia, USA)
H.G. Cluozot had difficulties working in France after he had made "Le Corbeau" in 1943 which was produced by the German company and later judged by French as a piece of anti-French propaganda. Louis Jouvet, an admirer of Clouzot's work, invited him to direct a thriller "Quai des Orfevres" where he played an ambiguous police inspector investigating a murder that happened in Paris Music Hall. Without each other knowledge, the seductive cabaret singer Jenny Lamoure (Suzy Delair) and her jealous piano-accompanist husband Maurice who is madly in love with her (Bertrand Blier, father of director Bertrand Blier) trying to cover up (without each other's knowledge) what they believe to be their involvement in the murder? Enters tenacious policeman (Louis Jouvet) who is determined to discover the truth. Jouvet practically stole the movie with wonderfully cynic and sentimental in the same time performance. "His character, his eagle-like profile and his unique way of speaking made him unforgettable."
"Quai des Orfevres", witty and atmospheric observation of human weaknesses was a great comeback of H.G. Cluozot, the fine director, "French Hitchcock".
4.5/5
Quai des Orfevres June 25, 2007
John Farr
This smart, atmospheric policier marked Clouzot's return to filmmaking after the putatively anti-French "Le Corbeau." Blier and Delair are magnetic performers, and clearly relish their roles as a husband and wife under investigation by crafty Inspector Antoine (the marvelous Louis Jouvet), a man with a nose for human foibles. Clouzot handles the noir conventions with a deft touch, but focuses on developing his characters--including raven-haired beauty Simone Renant, playing Jenny's bosom friend and closet lesbian, Dora. (Best line: "I'm a funny kind of girl.") If you like your noir with a classy French twist, check out "Quai des Orfevres."
A marvelous, amusing movie about murder, jealousy, music halls and love, with enough raisins even for Hitchcock October 28, 2006
C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Is it a murder mystery? Is it a police procedural? Is it a back-stage look at seedy French music halls? Quai des Orfevres is all of these, but more than anything else it's an amusing comedy of infidelity, jealousy and love, set in post-WWII Paris. It may be surprising that Henri-Georges Clouzot, the director of such grim films as Le Corbeau or such suspenseful nail-biters as Diabolique and The Wages of Fear, is the director of this one. Clouzot, however, was a shrewd film-maker. "In a murder mystery," he tells us, 'there's an element of playfulness. It's never totally realistic. In this I share Hitchcock's view, which says, 'A murder mystery is a slice of cake with raisins and candied fruit, and if you deny yourself this, you might as well film a documentary.'" Quai des Orfevres is a wonderful film, and it's no documentary.
Jenny Martineau (Suzy Delair) is an ambitious singer at music halls and supper clubs. She's a flirt, she's sees nothing too wrong with using a bit of sex as well as talent to get a contract. Her stage name is Jenny Latour. And she really loves her husband, Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier). Martineau is something of a sad sack. He's her accompanist and arranger. He's a bit balding, a bit chubby and jealous to a fault. Then we have their neighbor, the photographer Dora Monnier (Simone Renant). She's blond, gorgeous (think of Rita Hayworth) and capable. She and Martineau have been friends since they were children together. Dora, however, is definitely not thinking just of friendship when she looks at Jenny. Then comes along Georges Brignon (Charles Dullin), a wizened, rich and dirty old man, who often has Dora take "art" photographs of his young female proteges whom he poses himself. He offers a contract for a film to Jenny, and suggests a dinner at his home to discuss the details. Jenny is more than willing. Maurice is furious and forbids it. Jenny shouts right back at him, "You're jealous of the rich! Well, I want my share of their dough. I'm all for royalty!" "You're dad was a laborer," Maurice shouts back. "So what? Under Louis XV, I'd have been Madame de Pompadour! I'd have heated up their tights!"
And after Brignon is found dead with a smashed champagne bottle next to his bleeding skull, there's Dora to try to make things safe for Jenny. But wait. Inspector Antoine gets the case. Antoine (Louis Jouvet) is a tall, tired, middle-aged bachelor with sore feet. He has seen it all. He served in "the colonies" with the Foreign Legion and returned with an adopted baby and malaria. The child is now about eight-years old and Antoine dotes on him. One of the first things Antoine discovers is not only did someone brain Brignon with a bottle, someone shot him in the heart. Who did it? Before long Jenny, Maurice and Dora all are making up alibis, lying and, at one or another point, confessing. How will Antoine discover the murderer? Will we have a chance to see some great music hall songs sung by Jenny Latour? Everything becomes clear, but only with time and Detective Antoine's persistence. We are left with many kinds of love leading to all kinds of motives, from hair-trigger jealousy to longing glances...and all played with a nice mixture of Gallic amusement.
Clouzot takes us to a Paris of seedy but not threatening neighborhoods, to downtrodden music publishers where tunes are played on the piano for buyers, to restaurants with discrete private dining rooms. Most of all, he takes us to the music hall where Jenny Latour often performs. We can see Jenny as she sings, with couples in the seats and single men wearing their coats and hats in standing room. And everyone smokes. The first third of the film, in fact, takes place largely in this milieu. With Jenny singing about "Her petite tra-la-la, her sweet tra-la-la," we follow her from trying out the song at the publishers to a rehearsal to a saucy performance with Jenny in a feathered hat, a corset, gartered stockings and not much else.
Delair, Blier and Renant all do wonderful jobs, but it Louis Jouvet who holds everything together. He was a marvelous actor who disliked making films. The stage was his world, and he took on films only if he happened to like the director and to make money to finance his stage work. Jouvet was tall with a long face and broad cheekbones. He was not conventionally handsome but he had what it takes to dominate a scene. For a look at how skillfully he could play comedy, watch him in Drole de Drame. He's a fascinating actor. At one point he says, "I've taken a liking to you, Miss Dora Monnier." "Me?" she asks. "Yes. Because you and I are two of a kind. When it comes to women, we'll never have a chance." Jouvet brings all kinds of nuances to that line, from rueful regret to a gentle amusement.
The Criterion release of Quai des Orfevres has an excellent black-and-white transfer, with deep blacks and rich grays. There is a short interview with Clouzot and another interview with Blier, Renant and Delair. The case holds a fold-out which gives film details and a solid essay about the film. Most importantly, on the other side it gives us a full-length photo of Jenny in her small and effective costume.
Film noir and then some . . . August 31, 2006
Ronald Scheer (Los Angeles)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This neatly contrived story involving murder, love, lust, a police investigation, and pleasant music hall interludes ranges in quick order across a range of genres, layering escapist entertainment, suspense, and sentiment over dramatic ironies, comic absurdities, and psychological realism that all look ahead to a style of filmmaking well suited to a postmodern sensibility. With so much going on in one film, you have to hang onto your seat as you're propelled through multiple turns of plot and a large cast of characters all converging in a final point of narrative impact - and on Christmas Eve. Sounds complicated, but this classic of post-war French cinema is great fun.
The DVD includes a discussion of the film, made for French TV in the 1970s, in which the pipe-smoking director, Clouzot, reveals among other things that he wrote the script based on his memory of an out of print book - the result apparently bearing little resemblance to the original. Included are comments by the three principals, who remember Clouzot's direction as dictatorial and heavy-handed. Meanwhile, the interviewer characterizes the film as "cynical" in its vision - hardly an observation viewers would make today. Also recommended, the classic film noir "Touchez Pas le Grisbi."
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