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As an artist Henri-Georges Clouzot was fearless: in the darkness of the German occupation he made a movie about the social crime of informing. Poison Pen accusations destroy trust, bringing out the worst in the people of a small French town. Who is The Crow and how many will suffer before the letters stop? It’s a study in vitriolic misanthropy — the kind of cold observation that Clouzot does so well. At the war’s finish director Clouzot was accused of collaboration, and for a time was censured. Later on, some English critics classified the show as a horror film. It’s certainly creepy enough.

Le Corbeau

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 227

1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date , 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Micheline Francey, Héléna Manson, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Sylvie, Liliane Maigné, Pierre Larquey, Noël Roquevert, Bernard Lancret, Antoine Balpêtré, Jean Brochard, Pierre Bertin, Louis Seigner,...

At first exposure, we are likely to wonder what it is about Jacques Becker’s films that make them feel distinctive.Antoine et Antoinette, his fourth completed feature, expresses his sensibility as fully as any of his films; yet Becker is clearly playing by a great many of the rules of entertainment cinema. His visual ideas are not radical: he relies on conventional patterns of decoupage, often uses gentle camera moves when introducing locations, favors a moderate expressionism of lighting that enhances the pictorial qualities of his sets. His manipulation of narrative is likewise familiar: the complicated plot is handled deftly and light-heartedly to convey the basically comic nature of the enterprise; there is a stock villain, the lecherous businessman Roland (Noël Roquevert), whose offenses are accompanied by comical music cues that limit his threat; the story line is designed in broad movements of joy and despondency, with events within...