Le Corbeau

{{about|the French mystery film noir|the artist|Le Corbeau (artist)}} {{Infobox film | name = Le Corbeau | image = Le corbeau release poster.jpg | alt = | caption = | director = Henri-Georges Clouzot | producer = René Montis<ref name="bifi" /> | writer =  | screenplay = Louis Chavance<br />Henri-Georges Clouzot<ref name="bifi" /> | story = | based_on =  | starring = {{Plainlist| * Pierre Fresnay * Ginette Leclerc * Pierre Larquey * Micheline Francey }} | music = Tony Aubin<ref name="bifi" /> | cinematography = Nicolas Hayer<ref name="bifi" /> | editing = | studio = Continental Films<ref name="bifi" /> | distributor = Tobis | released = {{Film date|1943|9|28|df=yes|ref1=<ref name=Cineuropa>{{cite web|work=Cineuropa|title=The Raven (Le corbeau)|url=https://cineuropa.org/en/film/400908/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20260103232442/https://cineuropa.org/en/film/400908/|archive-date=3 January 2026}}</ref>}} | runtime = 93 minutes<ref name=Turan/> | country = France<ref name="criterion">{{cite web|url=https://www.criterion.com/films/684-le-corbeau|work=The Criterion Collection|title=Le Corbeau|archive-url=https://archive.today/20260104060815/https://www.criterion.com/films/684-le-corbeau|archive-date=4 January 2026|url-status=live}}</ref> | language = French<ref name="bifi" /> | budget = | gross =  }}

'''''Le Corbeau''''' ({{literal translation|The Raven}}) is a 1943 French mystery film noir{{sfn|Lloyd|2007|pages=87–88}}<ref name=Turan>{{cite web|work=Los Angeles Times|title=Review: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s chilly mystery ‘Le Corbeau’ shook occupied France 75 years ago|last=Turan|first=Kenneth|date=3 May 2018|url-status=live|url=https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-le-corbeau-review-20180503-story.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20250213013201/https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-le-corbeau-review-20180503-story.html|archive-date=13 February 2025}}</ref> directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and starring Pierre Fresnay, Micheline Francey, Ginette Leclerc, and Pierre Larquey. Its plot focuses on a provincial French town where a number of citizens begin receiving anonymous letters containing libelous information, particularly targeting a doctor accused of providing abortions. The mystery surrounding the letters begins to tear apart the social fabric of the community, eventually escalating into violence and chaos. The screenplay is loosely based on an anonymous letter case that began in the town of Tulle, Limousin, in 1917.<ref name=BBC/>

Released in September 1943 at the height of World War II, ''Le Corbeau'' was subject to notable controversy. It was produced by Continental Films, a German production company established near the beginning of the Occupation of France, and was pulled from theatres under the right-wing Vichy government due to its depiction of immoral characters and "thinly veiled references to the destructive nature of informing on your neighbors", a common practice under the Vichy government.<ref name=Turan/> The film also faced censorship efforts from the French Left after the war, as it had been perceived by the underground and the Communist press as vilifying the French people, depicting their national character as anti-Resistance.<ref name=Turan/>

The political backlash over the film resulted in Clouzot initially being banned for life from directing in France, though this ban was ultimately lifted in 1947. The film remained suppressed until 1969.{{sfn|Spotts|2008|p=327}} It was remade as ''The 13th Letter'' (1951) by Otto Preminger.

==Plot== In a small French town identified as "anywhere", anonymous poison pen letters are sent by somebody signing as "''Le Corbeau''" (the Raven). The letters start by accusing doctor Rémy Germain of having an affair with Laura Vorzet, the pretty young wife of the elderly psychiatrist Dr. Vorzet. Germain is also accused of performing illegal abortions. Letters are then sent to virtually all the population of the town, but keep getting back to the initial victim, Dr. Germain. The situation becomes increasingly serious when François, a patient of the hospital commits suicide with his straight razor after the Raven writes to him that his cancer is terminal.

Laura Vorzet's sister Marie Corbin, a nurse in the infirmary, becomes a suspect and is arrested, but soon new letters arrive. When one letter is dropped in a church from a gallery, it becomes apparent the Raven must be one of the people seated there at the time. They are gathered to re-write the Raven's letters as dictated by Dr. Vorzet, to compare the handwriting. Germain's lover Denise is suspected when she faints during the dictation, only for Laura to be identified by material found on her blotter.

Germain agrees to sign an order committing Laura as insane; he is called away to attend Denise, who has fallen down a flight of stairs, but, before he leaves, Laura protests she wrote the Raven's first letter before Dr. Vorzet began dictating them, making him the true Raven. Just as the ambulance takes Laura away, Germain returns to find Dr. Vorzet dead at his desk, his throat cut by the cancer patient's mother as he was writing the Raven's final, triumphant letter.

==Cast== {{Cast listing| * Pierre Fresnay as Doctor Rémy Germain * Ginette Leclerc as Denise Saillens * Pierre Larquey as Doctor Michel Vorzet * Héléna Manson as Marie Corbin * Pierre Bertin as The Sub-Prefect * Liliane Maigné as Rolande Saillens * Roger Blin as François * Micheline Francey as Laura Vorzet * Antoine Balpêtré as Doctor Delorme * Louis Seigner as Doctor Bertrand * Noël Roquevert as School Director Saillens * Jean Brochard as Bonnevie * Gustave Gallet as Fayolle * Bernard Lancret as The Postmaster Delorme * Sylvie as François' mother * Jeanne Fusier-Gir as the Small-Wear Dealer * Nicole Chollet as Vorzet's Maid * Lucienne Bogaert as Woman * Palmyre Levasseur as Magistrate * Marcel Delaître as Preacher * Pierre Palau as The Postmaster * Pâquerette as Une suspecte * Marie-Jacqueline Chantal as Une suspecte * Robert Clermont as Monsieur de Maquet * Étienne Decroux as Le garçon du cercle * Paul Barge as Un homme * Albert Brouett as Un suspect * Eugène Yvernès as Un suspect * Albert Malbert as Le Suisse }}

==Production== The film is loosely based on an anonymous letter case that had begun in the town of Tulle, Limousin, in 1917. Anonymous letters had been sent by somebody signing "the eye of the tiger".<ref name="BBC">{{cite news | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5041828.stm | title = Informants in the French tradition | work = BBC News|date = 3 June 2006 |url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120711002127/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5041828.stm|archive-date=11 July 2012|last=Schofield|first=Hugh}}</ref> The first version of the screenplay was written by Louis Chavance shortly after the Tulle letters, years before it was finally produced.<ref name="Jeanson">{{cite journal|author=Jeanson, Henri|author-link=Henri Jeanson|title=The Return of Clouzot's ''Le Corbeau'' or The Commies vs. ''Le Corbeau''|work= L'Intransigeant|date=10 September 1947}}</ref> The film credits Clouzot for adapting the story himself, and both Clouzot and Chavance for writing the dialogue.<ref name="bifi" />

''Le Corbeau'' was produced by Continental Films, which aside from being a German company established during Occupation, was known for making detective films "with a light, even comic tone" and often featuring Pierre Fresnay,<ref name="Williams">{{cite web|first=Alan|last=Williams|url=https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/312-le-corbeau|archive-date=4 January 2026|archive-url=https://archive.today/20260104002819/https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/312-le-corbeau|url-status=live|title=Le Corbeau|work=The Criterion Collection|date=February 16, 2004}}</ref> who played Germain in this film. Clouzot previously worked with Fresnay on another Continental Films project, ''The Murderer Lives at Number 21'' (1942). Writer Joseph Kessel later criticised the film's Continental origins, noting ''Le Corbeau'' was funded by the Germans, and in that context could be seen as a statement on French corruption. Kessel questioned if the film would be made if it were set in Germany.<ref name="Kessel">{{cite journal|author=Kessel, Joseph|author-link=Joseph Kessel|title=The ''Corbeau'' Affair (continued)|work=L'Intransigeant|date=27 September 1947}}</ref>

It was shot at the Billancourt Studios in Paris with location filming around Montfort-l'Amaury. The film's sets were designed by the art director Andrej Andrejew.

==Release== ''Le Corbeau'' was released in France on 28 September 1943.<ref name="bifi">{{cite web|url=http://cinema.encyclopedie.films.bifi.fr/index.php?pk=47751&_ga=1.260695693.1287416466.1476976246|publisher=Bifi.fr|title=Le Corbeau |accessdate=20 October 2016|language=French}}</ref>

===Censorship=== ''Le Corbeau'' faced significant controversy and censorship after its release.<ref name=Turan/> The right-wing Vichy government had the film pulled from theaters due to the immorality of its characters, as well as the "thinly veiled references to the destructive nature of informing on your neighbors", a common practice under the Vichy government.<ref name=Turan/> After France's liberation at the end of World War II, the country's political left also supported censorship of the film because it depicted a microcosmic vision of the country that contradicted the notion that France had been a "top-to-bottom nation of heroic resisters."<ref name=Turan/> Despite the controversy, the film continued to screen privately in cineclubs throughout France and often drew thousands of moviegoers.<ref name="Jeanson"/>

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection.<ref name="criterion" /> This DVD went out of print by 2011,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.criterion.com/films/684-le-corbeau|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111229032913/https://www.criterion.com/films/684-le-corbeau|archive-date=29 December 2011|work=The Criterion Collection|title=Le Corbeau (1943)}}</ref> before Criterion reissued the film on Blu-ray in 2022 featuring a new 4K transfer.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/le-corbeau-blu-ray-review-henri-georges-clouzot/|work=Slant Magazine|title=Blu-ray Review: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ''Le Corbeau'' on the Criterion Collection|date=15 September 2022|last=Bowen|first=Chuck|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20260104084741/https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/le-corbeau-blu-ray-review-henri-georges-clouzot/|archive-date=4 January 2026}}</ref>

In the UK, it was released on a region 2 DVD by Optimum in 2005, rated PG.

==Reception== In 1947, the film was released commercially, with writer Henri Jeanson praising it as a major piece in French cinema, arguing it was repulsive, but, when compared to reality, became nearly romantic.<ref name="Jeanson"/> Despite criticising its origins, Joseph Kessel, writing in response to Jeanson, said that ''Le Corbeau'' was indisputably a remarkable film.<ref name="Kessel"/>

Writing in 2004, Professor Alan Williams judged ''Le Corbeau'' to be "the first classic French film noir", though made before the term film noir was coined.<ref name="Williams"/> He found low-key humour in the screenplay and also argued it posed "a properly philosophical debate about the effects of the German occupation", comparing the atmosphere created by the Raven's letters to that under Occupation.<ref name="Williams"/>

One notable legacy of the film was to make "crow" a term for a malicious informant.<ref name="BBC"/> In 1984, an anonymous letter-writer and phone-caller taunted a young family in Lépanges-sur-Vologne (France). The family's four-year-old son Gregory was abducted and found drowned in the river. The media labelled the anonymous killer (or killers) 'Le Corbeau'. No one has been apprehended for the crime. In 2006, the film enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in Paris after the Clearstream affair, in which anonymous letters accused French politicians of having hidden bank accounts.<ref name="BBC"/>

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==Sources== *{{cite book|last=Lloyd|first=Christopher|title=Henri-Georges Clouzot|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7190-7014-3|location=Manchester, England}} *{{cite book |last1=Spotts |first1=Frederic |title=The Shameful Peace: How French Artists & Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation|year=2008 |publisher=Yale University Press|location=New Haven, Connecticut|isbn=978-0-300-14237-2}}

==External links== * {{IMDb title|0035753}} * {{rotten-tomatoes|le_corbeau}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Corbeau, Le}} Category:1943 films Category:1943 French films Category:Censored films Category:Continental Films films Category:Film noir Category:Films about nuns Category:Films about medical doctors Category:Films about suicide Category:Films directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot Category:Films scored by Tony Aubin Category:Films set in France Category:Films shot at Billancourt Studios Category:Films with screenplays by Henri-Georges Clouzot Category:French black-and-white films Category:French mystery films Category:Political controversies in film Category:1943 French-language films