Not the best of Marcel Carne by any means but an intelligent, measured if somewhat conventional screen version of Zola's novel, nevertheless. Simone Signoret is "Therese Raquin", the married woman whose affair with truck-driver Raf Vallone leads to murder and blackmail. She is, of course, excellent but this is Vallone's movie; it is an effortless performance of an ordinary man caught up in events over which he has no real control. It's also superbly shot in Lyon by Roger Hubert and the updating to postwar France fits the plot perfectly. In an American setting this could be by James M. Cain though the climatic twist is neater than anything Cain might have given us.
The films reviewed here represent those I have liked or loved over the years. It is not a list of my favourite films but all the films reviewed here are worth seeing and worth seeking out. I know many of you won't agree with me on a lot of these but hopefully you will grant me, and the films that appear here, our place in the sun. Thanks for reading.
Thursday 10 October 2019
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