La tenda scarlatta

The term "Camera -Stylo" (=movie camera pen) was never better applied than on "Le Rideau Cramoisi" ,a medium-length based on a short story taken from Barbey D'Aurevilly's "Les Diaboliques" -which HG Clouzot quotes at the beginning of his own "Diaboliques".

"Le Rideau Cramoisi" is not a thriller,mind you -although in its way,it is ,as the lovers might be discovered every time they meet. Camera pen ,for the whole story is told by the hero in voice over;the four principals do not say a single line ,but it has nothing to do with the silent era:their playing is what you should call "underplaying" and they all move in a gloomy atmosphere of a bourgeois mansion.

The viewers ,not familiar with the short story,might find the ending cynical and a bit macho;I must say I like Astruc's "Une Vie" (more conventional in its form) best.