http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034478/
released August 6, 1942 in France.
I love Pierre Fresnay. There, I've said it. And there are scenes in this film that are fun like the first Thin Man is fun, all wit, and sparkle, and surprise. Suzy Delair plays the female lead, (bad) singer Mila Malou. She's a French actress, but her character may in fact be American in the film - she is certainly obnoxious, and very much in the style of the earnest, uppity all-American girl - except that there are a number of very spicy jokes that would never, ever have made it past Joe Breen in the USA at this time. She also appears to live with Inspector Wens, (Fresnay) without the benefit of marital vows. And she spends part of one scene trying to get him to let her pop his blackheads while they talk.
Besides the dialogue scenes between Fresnay and Delair, it's a fairly flat mystery, of the "one of you in this parlor/boarding house/boat/train" committed the murder and I'm going to figure out who!" kind. A small surprise at the end, but the best is all between Fresnay and Delair.
dbdumonteil on IMDB said "All Clouzot's work, all that he will brilliantly develop in subsequent works is already here: a rotten microcosm (the boarding-house with a lot of wicked old people predates the school in "les diaboliques" and the small town in "le corbeau". " True.
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