Movie Details
| Title: | Quai Des Orfevres | |
| Director: | Henri-Georges Clouzot | |
| Year: | 1947 | |
| Genre: | Noir | |
| Times Seen: | 2 | |
| Last Seen: | 11.11.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (2)
- Le Corbeau
- Wages of Fear
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 11.11.23 | Blu-ray | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2023 roll: 2 spine: 193 I can't remember when I bought this french noir from Henri-Georges Clouzot. I remember renting Diabolique after hearing Clouzot was like a French Hitchcock and not liking it much, but I think Wages of Fear is a legit masterpiece. Which side will this film fall on? let's find out. Well, I fell asleep. Being drowsy doesn't really work when you have to read subtitles. AKA Jenny Lamour (i think the original title is the location of police headquarters), this must be a pretty early french noir if the story holds true that french filmmakers didn't see any 40s american pictures until after the war. The plot is pretty straight-forward in a kind of Hitchcock vein, where a jealous husband sneaks out to murder what he thinks is a tryst but shows up to find the guy already dead. So the cops think he did it because he set up an alibi with holes in it, but meanwhile it was the wife who actually did it and her alibi is shaky as well. At that point, it becomes the police inspector's movie as he tries to put all these pieces together. It was a pretty fun watch, but no Hitchcock in my opinion. No Wages of Sin either, although I guess this shows the seeds or something, being one of Clouzot's earlier hits (or perhaps his breakout hit as the back of the dvd case suggests). It would've made for a fine midnight movie but makes an even better Sunday matinee. And that puts a button on another year of Criterion random rolls. I halved the pile down to 4(!) which mean next year (assuming I don't go making a bunch of blind buys this year) I'll finally reach the end of the list. What happens then you might wonder? Well I know the answer but you'll just have to wait and see. As for tomorrow (today), we're diving back into my list of double features from earlier this year to make some room on the old hard drive. |
| 09.05.06 | Paramount | Same goes for this one pretty much. It seemed really talky to me... lots of reading. I skipped a scene here and there trying to figure out if I've seen enough french movies to understand what they're saying with my eyes closed. I couldn't. Again, it didn't seem bad and there were several pretty great moments, but my whole mindset was just in and out and I drifted away from full attention several times. It needs a more faithful viewing before a final opinion but right now it was just ok. |
