Quai des Orfèvres Reviews

I have just discovered that, after WWII, Henri-George Clouzot wasn’t allowed to make another movie following the release of ‘Le corbeau’, a movie which was at first critically acclaimed but very quickly criticized for the way it portrayed the French people very negatively. After 4 long years, following a very long fight from his defenders, Clouzot was able to get back to work coming up with this feature which was once again a massive critical and commercial success. Basically, you had most of Clouzot’s trademark here. Indeed, it is a film noir, a detective story, and most of those the characters involved have some rather dubious morality. Ultimately, this movie never reached the level of his greatest movies ‘Les diaboliques’ and ‘Le salaire de la peur’ but since those are two are among the very best French movies ever made so that would be asking a lot. Eventually, after this movie, Clouzot would direct 2 rather obscure features (‘Manon’ and ‘Miquette et sa mère’) but he would make eventually a massive come-back with the really impessive ‘Le salaire de la peur’. To conclude, I really enjoyed this movie a lot and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in French movies.