For his first French film in nearly a decade (he’d spent the war years in Hollywood), filmmaker Julien Duvivier chose to adapt Les Fiançailles de Monsieur Hire, a novel by Georges Simenon. Panique, as Duvivier’s version was titled, is a twisted tale of murder, subterfuge and revenge from “Beyond.” Middle-aged loner Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon) falls for his neighbor Alice (Viviane Romance) only to be framed for the murder committed by Alice’s lover Alfred (Paul Bernard). The ending suggests that the actual culprits are going to get their well-deserved comeuppance, though exoneration comes a shade too late for the luckless Monsieur Hire. The Simenon book was filmed again in 1989, as the excellent Monsieur Hire, directed by Patrice Leconte, a film as bleakly pessimistic as the original, more in keeping with the style and tone of the literary source (Rotten Tomatoes)
Very hard-boiled – visually, in plot and in characters – and very French in setting, the best cocktail for the classic French noir. What strikes the contemporary viewer is the theme of intolerance: in a closed neighbourhood, the ‘stranger’, middle-aged loner Monsieur Hire, is suspicious in himself, an easy target to the community’s frustrations. Consequently, he is the perfect culprit for the murder of the community member which opens the film, who is actually killed by the angry mob without any proof in the end. Monsieur Hire is a Frankenstein type of ‘good-bad-guy’, a kind-hearted fellow with an ugly appearance, who makes the fatal error to fall in in love with the femme fatal, the damsel-in-distress girl who turns dark lady for the love of the real villain Alfred, a member of that very same neighbourhood. Both are finally framed, but too late: prejudice has already had its sacrificial victim, and there is no happy end here. All very noir, and very meaningful even today.