Derrière la façade

The two meanings are displayed in the movies;everything happens behind the façade of an apartment building,and every tenant has got something to hide after the owner's murder.

What's definitely lacking is unity:it resembles Julien Duvivier's movies made up of sketches ,but without Pepe le Moko's director's genius.EVerything that made Duvivier one of the greatest names of the French cinema(strong screenplays,evil characters,film noir atmosphere) is desperately nowhere to be found here.Scene follows another ,without sustaining any dramatic progression,bringing almost all the big names of the era ,waiting for being in the front of the stage and eager to put on their usual act:Eric Von Stroheim,Michel Simon,Jules Berry,Elvire Popesco,Marguerite Moreno ,Gaby Morlay and many more do exactly what the audience is waiting for.The whodunit is devoid of interest -we do not care a little bit about the murderer's identity- and it's not offset by a solid psychological study à la Simenon because all the characters but the two cops -the human one and the hard one:for that matter,the movie was ahead of its time- hardly stay five minutes on the screen.

About Georges Lacombe ,the director:his best movies were "le dernier des six" ,which he made two years later with a big help from great director HG Clouzot who wrote the screenplay,and "Le Pays Sans Etoiles";Also worthy of investigation is "la lumière d'en face" which revealed one year before Vadim's mediocre "Et Dieu créa la femme" ,Brigitte Bardot's sensuality.