Corbeau, Le
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Year Released: 1943
Rating: 3.0
A detective story worthy of Agatha Christie: someone is sending nasty letters to people, letting everyone know about the 'things going on behind closed doors' - and it's ruining people's lives and relationships. Like Clouzot's Diabolique, red herrings are always being thrown around to keep you off-balance and drawn-in, marking everyone as a potential suspect (and then, just as you're sure it's one person, it's another), though the characters are complex and behave realistically, thereby keeping the concept believable. Ran into trouble when first released for being funded by a German company during the Occupation, though it has nothing to do with fascism - it does, however, say a lot about the destructive power of gossip and the need to take responsibility for how one behaves when out of public view.
