- Henri-Georges Clouzot's debut film, L'Assassin Habite au 21 (or The Murderer Lives at Number 21) is an exceptionally odd mixture of comedy and crime. From its first five minutes, which end with a chilling point-of-view stabbing, you might reasonably anticipate a serious drama. But the rest of the film follows a pattern much more along the lines of The Thin Man series, in which a wisecracking couple tries to one-up each other while in pursuit of a serial killer known only as "Mr. Durand."
- The couple are famed police inspector Wens Vorobeychik (Pierre Fresnay) and his playful partner Mila Malou (Suzy Delair), both of whom infiltrate a boarding house to ferret out the suspected killer. While Wens adopts the staid persona of a minister, Mila is the sort who erupts into song every chance she gets. The rest of the boarders are a varied bunch, consisting of a odd professor (Jean Tissier), a poor craftsman (Pierre Larquey), a cross military doctor (Noël Roquevert), an old maid (Maximilienne), a blind boxer (Jean Despeaux) and his nurse (Huguette Vivier), a whistling porter (Marc Natol), and the housemistress (Odette Talazac).
- While L'Assassin Habite au 21 is hardly in the same league as Clouzot's masterpieces Les Diaboliques and The Wages of Fear, the film is occasionally successful as both a comedy and a crime drama. Although Fresnay is surprisingly unmemorable, Delair's high voice and rapid-fire dialogue are fairly entertaining, and the film's various character actors do a lot to help the production along. Being relatively unfamiliar with Clouzot's career, I was surprised to learn that he made this film for the German-owned Continental Films during the Nazi occupation of France. Apparently his later collaboration with Fresnay, Le Corbeau, temporarily got Clouzot banned from filmmaking in France and landed Fresnay in jail. I'm not sure how that all ties in to this film, but there you go.
