Le corbeau (1943)

Director:

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Writers:

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

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 | Secret | Poison Pen Letter | Village | Doctor

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
Robert Clermont	...	Monsieur de Maquet
Palau	...	Le receveur de P.T.T.
Marcel Delaître	...	Le dominicain (as Marcel Delaitre)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Paul Barge	...	Un homme (uncredited)
Lucienne Bogaert	...	La provocatrice chez le docteur Germain (uncredited)
Albert Brouett	...	Un suspect (uncredited)
Marie-Jacqueline Chantal	...	Une suspecte (uncredited)
Nicole Chollet	...	La bonne de Vorzet (uncredited)
Etienne Decroux	...	Le garçon du cercle (uncredited)
Gustave Gallet	...	Fayolle (uncredited)
Palmyre Levasseur	...	Une commère (uncredited)
Albert Malbert	...	Le Suisse (uncredited)
Pâquerette	...	Une suspecte (uncredited)
Eugène Yvernès	...	Un suspect (uncredited)

Directed by
Henri-Georges Clouzot		(as Henri Georges Clouzot)

Writing credits
Louis Chavance		(screenplay)
Henri-Georges Clouzot		(adaptation and dialogue) (as Henri Georges Clouzot) and
Louis Chavance		(adaptation and dialogue)

Produced by
René Montis	....	producer (uncredited)
Raoul Ploquin	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
Tony Aubin

Cinematography by
Nicolas Hayer

Film Editing by
Marguerite Beaugé		(uncredited)

Set Decoration by
Andrej Andrejew		(as André Andrejew)
Hermann Wann		(uncredited)

Sound Department
William Robert Sivel	....	sound (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Continental Films

Distributors

• Films Sonores Tobis (1943) (France) (theatrical)
• London Film Productions (1948) (UK) (theatrical)
• Westport International (1948) (USA) (theatrical) (subtitled)
• Optimum Releasing (2003) (UK) (theatrical) (re-release)
• Criterion Collection, The (2004) (USA) (DVD)
• Janus Films
• Studio Canal (2003) (France) (DVD)

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:

The screenplay is based on a true story which took place in Tulle (Corrèze, France) in the 1920s.

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 Camp de Thiaroye (1987)

Secrets of a Gallic Peyton Place unearthed in Clouzot's misanthropic thriller

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.