Le corbeau (1943)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writers:

Louis Chavance (screenplay)
Henri-Georges Clouzot (adaptation) ...

Release Date:

28 September 1943 (France)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Une petite ville comme il en est tant en France. [Original Version]

Plot:

French village doctor becomes target of poison-pen letters sent to village leaders, accusing him of affairs and practicing abortion.

Plot Keywords:

Letter | Poison Pen Letter | Secret | Village | Town

Cast

Pierre Fresnay	...	Le docteur Rémy Germain
Ginette Leclerc	...	Denise Saillens
Micheline Francey	...	Laura Vorzet
Héléna Manson	...	Marie Corbin, l'infirmière
Jeanne Fusier-Gir	...	La mercière
Sylvie	...	La mère du cancéreux
Liliane Maigné	...	Rolande Saillens
Pierre Larquey	...	Michel Vorzet
Noël Roquevert	...	Saillens, la maître d'école
Bernard Lancret	...	Le substitut
Antoine Balpêtré	...	Le docteur Delorme (as Antoine Balpétré)
Jean Brochard	...	Bonnevie, le trésorier de l'hôpital
Pierre Bertin	...	Le sous-préfet
Louis Seigner	...	Bertrand
Roger Blin	...	François, le cancéreux du 13

Also Known As:

L'oeil du serpent (France) (working title)
L'oiseau noir (France) (working title)
Laura (France) (working title)
Lettres anonymes (France) (working title)
Maladie contagieuse (France) (working title)
The Raven

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

France

Language:

French

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Wide Range Noiseless Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (original rating) (cut) | UK:PG (re-rating)

Filming Locations:

Montfort-l'Amaury, Yvelines, France

Company:

Continental Films

Trivia:

Apart from Henri-Georges Clouzot, several other cast and crew members were also barred from work once France was liberated from the Germans because they had worked for Continental Films: The actress Micheline Francey was suspended for a year; Noël Roquevert for 3 months; production designer André Andrejew for a total of 9 months.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Le docteur Rémy Germain: [washes blood off his arms] I saved the mother.
Grand-mother: And the baby?
Le docteur Rémy Germain: No.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Delicatessen (1991)

Humanity, before there were tabloids

According to a short interview with filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier in the French DVD-edition, the production company responsible for Le Corbeau was founded at the instigation of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. It was supposed to produce unpolitical, „uplifting" entertainment. And it functioned outside of the control and censorship authority of the collaborationist French Vichy regime. Somehow, with Le Corbeau director Georges Henri Coluzot succeeded in standing the company's original precept on its head, painting a dark and pessimistic picture of French society. The courage, daring (and foolhardiness?) of the makers of Le Corbeau is, I assume, beyond comprehension for a contemporary audience. Many French, not least the Resistance and the post war authorities, were offended by this portrayal. But, doesn't the title sequence say explicitly that it could have happened anywhere?

That is true, of course. The pastime of making slanderous remarks and general gossiping is an universal one. In Le Corbeau, set in a small provincial town where everybody knows everybody, almost no one and hardly any scandalous subject is spared. Virtually the whole community gets caught in this whirl of wild accusations and suspicions (I detected a certain resemblance with High Noon). It is beautiful how the director gets the message through that nobody is entirely good or entirely bad, culminating in a great scene where a primitive lamp is sent swinging back and forth, letting the shadows wander.

In this movie an anonymous writer sends letters to different people with wild accusations. Oddly, the big letters, the layout and even the short, catchy phrasing look like the prototype of a tabloid newspaper. The letters actually are hand made scandal sheets in an era when newspapers still were meant for fully literate people. One of the highlights of the movie is a funeral procession in which one of those letters falls from the horse drawn hearse. Due to its bold lettering it is immediately recognizable to everyone, but the mourners do not dare pick it up and wait until a curious child gets hold of it. Then they quickly gather around – a wonderful scene.

Le Corbeau is a timeless movie that I can highly recommend.