La nuit du carrefour

At a small, outlying suburb of Paris that seems to be three houses, a butcher shop and a garage or two, a corpse is found in a car. It's a Jewish diamond merchant from the Low Countries. The police are soon sweating the owner of the garage, George Koudria. He is an exiled Swedish aristocrat who lives in one of the houses with his sister, Winna Winnifred. Enter Inspector Maigret in the person of Pierre Renoir, the brother of the movie's director, Jean Renoir. Koudria does not crack, and he is sent back to his home. He flees across the border, while Maigret wanders around, asking question that have nothing to do with the events, watching and listening.

Renoir (the director) made this film between LA CHIENNE and BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING. Those films would seem more typical of his movies, with this one an odd outlier, a potboiler to offer some income and prove he is a bankable film maker. I found it fairly typical of his works in which relationships are unclear and it is up to Renoir (the actor) to winkle them out for the audience. You may look on it as a try-out for THE RULES OF THE GAME with murder, and Simenon's name to add to the commercial value of the effort. It's a fine, atmospheric movie, if you ignore the simple matter of the mystery.

The problem I have with the mystery is that there is a perfectly good and simple explanation of who did it up to the point where Maigret begins to demonstrate his theory. Simenon and the Renoir brothers play fairly with the audience in this murder mystery, but the actual solution is far more complicated than the one offered early on. That the solution turns out to be the truth is a trick of the writer. Another solution could just as easily been written and Maigret could have produced the evidence equally easily, should Simenon and the director have wished it. In effect, they produce the clues after the audience has been given the complete story.

An user says that the movie is inept.He is not completely wrong.But it's not Renoir's fault.You've got to know that one reel was definitively lost and that may account for some plot holes (Winna Winifried's behavior for instance) The plot is not essential .The atmosphere of a humid country where the fog falls every night matters more .There's also a study of xenophobia -although the ending (a bit incomprehensible anyway)- tends to deny it.

They say Simenon did not like the film.If you like French movies based on the Belgian writer's books try Duvivier's "Panique" and Delannoy's "Maigret et l'Affaire Saint-Fiacre" and "Maigret Tend un Piège".

Renoir certainly deserves his reputation as one of the greatest directors of cinema history, and this little-seen film adds an important chapter to his filmography. An engrossing and compelling mystery tale based on a novel by Simenon, this film allows Renoir to employ his characteristically poetic, expressive use of camera and setting in unexpected and provocative contexts. In addition, his use of sync sound (decidedly against the grain in Europe at this time) works well in the gritty locations of the story. As always with Renoir's films, the acting is of the highest quality - with brother Pierre playing the Inspector - while the film features subtle and intricate characterizations and themes that are brought to life with the director's keen sense of human behavior, motivations, and passions.

Although Jean Renoir is a highly acclaimed director, I found his "La Nuit Du Carrefour" to be creaky, dull, muddled, and slow-as-molasses. I had serious trouble following who is who except Maigret, and even Maigret himself seems to be fumbling most of the time. 1 very impressive minute of a POV car-chase cannot redeem the other 69. *1/2 out of 4.

This is a wonderful early look on film based on a crime novel by Georges Simenon. The novel itself is uncharacteristically atmospheric and deliberately unfocused and this was handled beautifully by Jean Renoir with his fog-enshrouded sets and atmosphere. It is missing a reel, as I understand, but the novel itself has sufficient ambiguity to forgive any omission of that sort. The acting, with its melange of accents is fascinating in its own way. The visuals win the day. It's beautiful to look at, exotic and definitely a one-of-a-kind of its genre and hardly "inept".

Curtis Stotlar