L’assassin habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21) (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1942)

In L’assassin habite au 21 (The Murderer Lives at Number 21), the first feature Henri-Georges Clouzot directed alone, he tries to merge thriller and comedy. The mise-en-scène is tributary to Alfred Hitchcock’s British thrillers and the stark shadows of the German expressionism, but the screenplay leans too much on comic effect. And that’s where the shoe pinches, since the combination is far from seamless.
Detective Wenceslas Wens (Pierre Fresnay) is looking for a ruthless serial killer who defiantly leaves his visiting-card, Monsier Durand, at the scene of the crime. His girlfriend Mila Malou, an aspiring singer (Suzy Delair, Clouzot’s long-term mistress), thinks that when she solves the crime, she will get a breakthrough. But Delair overplays the character, as are doing some other actors, especially in the second act that plays in a boarding-house where the killer presumably is living. That second act suffers from a too theatrical staging too, but all in all this is a promising albeit somewhat half-baked debut.