Le corbeau

There's a scribe with claws who's writing to the town, to people in high office, to bring them down, takes the name of Le Corbeau, that's a crow if you don't know, leaves them squawking, screeching, crying, full of woe. The target seems to be Rémy Germain, a doctor who may offer, abortion (he doesn't), but there's others with secrets, who may have closets of regrets, and dark wings are used, to take a flame, and fan.

A wonderful piece of filmmaking that takes you around the houses and rouses your suspicions on just about all the characters, before twisting and turning, snaking and worming to its devious finale. Great performances, great story, all from one of the greatest directors.

Even the children in Henri-Georges Clouzot's Le Corbeau (The Raven) are sneaky and malicious. No doubt they reflect their upbringing in the stifling French village of St. Robin, where a series of poison-pen letters – signed The Raven – has galvanized the populace into a spree of spying, whispering and finger-pointing. Most of the letters accuse an aloof doctor (Pierre Fresnay) of occupying illicit beds and of performing illegal operations – relieving women of burdens they're unwilling to bear.

The accusations aren't entirely fanciful – Fresnay has cheerless affairs going with the young wife (Micheline Francey) of a sententious, much older doctor (Pierre Larquey) and with the town pump (Ginette Leclerc), a smoldering seductress who's both lame and a hypochondriac. But the evil epistles disgorge more than enough malice to go around, alluding to dirty little secrets that touch just about everybody in this Gallic Peyton Place.

When one of the letters causes the suicide of a young man dying of liver cancer, another slips out of a wreath on his casket during his funeral procession, and yet another flutters from the rafters of the church during the requiem mass. The search for the anonymous writer reaches the point of hysteria – what else does the unseen assassin know, and who will be the next victim? Alone among the townsfolk, the mother (Sylvie) of the suicide seems resigned and resolute....

Clouzot has been called the French Hitchcock, but when Le Corbeau hit the screens in 1943 – released by a German production company during the Nazi occupation of France – he wasn't welcomed as warmly as the mischievous but harmless cherub across the Atlantic. its mordantly unflattering portrait of the French bourgeoisie was shunned as little short of treasonous. To be sure, Le Corbeau, like most of Clouzot's work (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear) seems to take Shakespeare's misanthropic Timon of Athens as inspiration for its outlook on humanity; it's certainly no tourist brochure for the French provinces.

When Otto Preminger remade the movie in 1951 as The 13th Letter (setting it in the Province of Québec, and starring Michael Rennie, Linda Darnell, Charles Boyer and Constance Smith), he had to pull back from the nastier material – the routine, glum adultery, the rumors of abortions – and apply rosier tints to the characters. None of that sentimental nonsense for Clouzot, who unrepentantly hewed to his malevolent vision right to the bitter end.

It's a legend!and a black one!The most famous scandal of French cinema during the occupation,le corbeau (the raven) has not lost its feathers even today. The facts:it was produced by the German firm "continental" where Clouzot used to work as a scripter "en chef".But people went as far as saying that the movie was shown in German movie theaters under the disagreeable title "a small town like so many other ones in France" .Balderdash!The movie was never released in Germany at the time. As Roger Boussinot wrote in "l'encyclopédie du cinéma"(1980),"the bourgeoisie ,be it French or German was all the same everywhere,and Hitler,whose fortunes were on the wane ,had to treat his own (bourgeoisie) gently.Actually,the film ran into difficulties after the Liberation.It was the ideal scapegoat,and along with so many others ,like Sacha Guitry,Arletty(the female star of "les enfants du paradis"),Ginette Leclerc (the female star of "le corbeau")and other "collaborators" (sic),Clouzot was blacklisted.

Why so much acrimony against "le corbeau"?Because it depicted life in French provinces in a way that was far from being idyllic.Anonymous letters are sent by the "raven",and drags the town through the mud.At first sight ,it seems like a simple whodunit:Clouzot 's first effort (l'assassin habite au 21) was a thriller.But there's more to the picture than meets the eye:what was latent in the first movie,we see it in its true colors:Clouzot's contempt for the whole human race,which will increase over the years.No character in "le corbeau " to identify with:the prototype of the film noir.Where is good?Where is bad?The most famous scene remains that of the light sway :the world is not black and white,what you thought black might be white and vice versa .

"Le Corbeau' was released at the wrong time.It was too different from the "Occupation" movies which dealt with "escape" "dream" as works as Carné's "les visiteurs du soir" or Jean Delannoy/Jean Cocteau's "l'éternel retour" testify.It was 1947 before HG Clouzot was allowed to direct again.Four years has passed,and he came back to Belgian writer Steeman (whose "le dernier des six" and "l'assassin habite au 21" he had already adapted),but his venom and his misanthropy hadn't dried up,and more masterpieces were to follow.

Otto Preminger directed a remake "the 13th letter" in 1951 which I haven't seen.On the other hand ,there was a French "modern "update by Yves Boisset (Radio Corbeau,1989)which is watchable but which can't be compared to Clouzot's thunderbolt back in 1943.

Made during the Nazi occupation of France, this little film is truly a gem, and it is a pity that, at the time, its authors and some actors were so badly treated within their own country at the expense of accusations of collaboration with the invaders, and of having made a film that allegedly speaks ill of the French people. This is not what is at stake here, the film could be perfectly set in any part of Europe or even in the USA and would not rigorously lose anything with this change.

Everything takes place in a small isolated village where, out of nowhere, a lot of anonymous defamatory letters begin to appear, signed by a figure who calls himself "The Crow". These letters go on to divulge the secrets and sins of the targeted persons, that kind of thing that we prefer that nobody knows about us. However, the main target turns out to be a doctor from the local hospital, accused of performing abortions and having love affairs with several women in the village. So far, nothing special... but one of the recipients of the letters committed suicide because of it, giving rise to a police investigation.

The film has a lot of qualities, even though it's not perfect. I felt that it starts very abruptly, does not introduce the environment or the situation, and ends in much the same way: it is only in the final moments that we finally know who wrote the letters. In the best noir style, nothing is as it seems and there is no one innocent. We even suspect children.

The cast is very good and does a very competent job, skillfully directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Pierre Fresnay is a charismatic protagonist with a good presence and Ginette Leclerc is magnificent, intense and deliciously not naive. Pierre Larquey also does a really good job here, full of personality and intensity. Micheline Francey is an equally good addition, but her role didn't strike me as all that impressive.

Technically, it's an excellent film noir, with very good cinematography and a deft use of light and sets. There are no visual gimmicks here, the film relies heavily on camerawork and there are some really amazing scenes, like when you see through a keyhole. There is also no soundtrack, but the sound effects and sound are good.

"Beware! I see all and tell all." So quoth the Raven, the pen name of the mysterious writer of poison pen letters that has plagued a small town in France with suspicion, fear and anxiety. Since this film was made by a Frenchman under a German controlled studio during Nazi occupied France in 1943, there is a subtext not necessarily explicit in the film itself, but nonetheless pervades its very essence. In Le Corbeau, Dr. Remy Germain becomes a victim when letters start circulating that accuse him of having an affair with a married woman and of being an abortionist. Both of these accusations are false but do contain half-truths, and it is the unfortunate tendency for groups of people, usually motivated by fear, to assume the worst. Furthermore, Germain is an outsider, in that he refuses to participate in gossip and avoids social clicks, which ironically makes him a target. Soon he will find himself under suspicion and alienated. Since virtually every member of the community has some skeleton in their closet, they would much rather turn their ire on the accused than risk having their own affairs aired by The Raven. And so the drama escalates to a crisis where Clouzot does not even spare the victim of blame. By assuming a position of detachment, Germain has turned a blind eye and thereby contributing to ignorance which only provides fuel for the Raven and the lies and deceit spread like a plague.