Day 21: "Quai des Orfevres"

Director: Henry-Georges Clouzot 1947
Several years before he made his famous movies "The Wages of Fear" and "Les Diaboliques," Clouzot made this little gem. Less nail-biting than those two films, "Quai des Orfevres" (the site of Paris' police headquarters) hits a Hitchcockian theme of an innocent man suspected of murder. Will he go to the guillotine? Or will the real murderer be found? The characters have depth, and Clouzot's camera delineates a dark, smoky world of nightclubs, vaudeville theaters and Paris streets. There is a wonderful performance by Louis Jouvet as a tenacious, Maigret-like police inspector.