"All those teenage girls read those tabloids ,where horrible murders are depicted in minute details" says the indignant teacher ."I've confiscated this trash ;if only they read the problem page!"
A classical love triangle, but although the plot is derivative, Henri Calef ,one of the most neglected French directors of the post-war era , gives it substance ; the characters are more detailed than in the average thriller ;Didier cheats on his wife ,but he does love her , and takes good care of her ,because he knows she's a heart condition and the doctor says that she may pass away before her time ; he's helped by his sister ,a spinster who teaches in highschool , and who lives with them.
The movie only takes off after the (accidental?) murder of the pregnant lover. Although her health does not allow her to give birth to a child, Didier can't even think of divorcing his ailing wife .
The cast is excellent :Georges Marchal is the cheating husband ,not so self-assured ,facing a harrowing dilemma;Françoise Christophe is deeply moving as the helplessly hoping wife,who is still thinking her husband can come back to her .But in the last part ,they take a back seat to Suzanne Dehelly ,the kind-hearted old maid who ,little by little, discovers the horrible truth :sadly all she does to save her brother backfires on him .
The detective plot is well written : the robbery is a good trick ,because ,for a short while ,one thinks that Didier is summoned by the police for his crime ;clues are given to them : a trunk , a bill, an umbrella .Now the police suspect the husband and his wife must not ,must never know the truth.
After two so-so thrillers ("la passante " "ombres et lumières") , Calef returns to the desperate film noir ,and although it does not match early works ( "la souricière" " eaux troubles" ), it does not deserve to be ignored.
