Retorno a la vida

Catherine Farrell tells fellow taxi dancer Marie Déa that she has a way out of the poor racket. She's answering a personal ad for a young single girl, with the possibility of matrimony. Then she disappears from the face of the earth. The police call in Mlle Déa. This is not the only case of this happening. She is a smart girl, who works as a translator and is observant. They agree she will answer suspicious ads with police detective Jean Témerson standing nearby. Some of people who answer these ads turn out to be bizarre, like Erich von Stroheim. Some are sweet and silly, like the young boy who shows up with flowers. In the course of these, she meets night club impressario Maurice Chevalier and his partner, Pierre Renoir. Chevalier pursues her, singing a couple of songs along the way, she cracks open a white slavery ring, all is wonderful, and then....

It was later remade as LURED with Lucille Ball in Mlle Déa's role; interestingly, Michel Michelet wrote the scores for both movies. But this one is not film noir, despite Siodmak's position in the genre during his American stay. It's not even magical realism. It seems to be half psychological thriller, and then when Chevalier shows up, it turns into a musical comedy. Director Robert Siodmak handles both tones well, with the Chevalier stuff never getting too light, and the psychological drama and darkness growing heavy only in the last half hour. Although I found the plunge into that last thirty minutes abrupt, it remained gripping throughout.