Le Corbeau
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Genre: Mystery, Black-and-white, Film noir, Psychological thriller, Thriller, World cinema, Drama
Year: 1943
Country: France
Language: French Language
Starring: Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Pierre Larquey, Pierre Bertin, Antoine Balpêtré, Louis Seigner, Liliane Maigne, Bernard Lancret, Jean Brochard, Marcel Delaître, Palau, Noël Roquevert, Roger Blin, Jeanne Fusier-Gir, Robert Clermont, Héléna Manson
Le Corbeau (The Raven) is a 1943 French film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. The film was notable for causing serious trouble to its director after World War II because it had been produced by Continental Films, a German production company established in France in the early months of the war, and because the film had been perceived by the underground and the communist press as vilifying the French people. Because of this, Clouzot was initially banned for life from directing in France and the film too was banned, but both bans were lifted in 1947. The film was remade as The 13th Letter (1951) by Otto Preminger.
The word corbeau has always been the French for raven or crow, but has now acquired the sense of a sender of anonymous letters. One of the most infamous cases of this kind centred on the murder of four-year-old Grégoire Villemin. A sender of anonymous letters claimed responsibility and at one stage the boy's own mother was accused of sending the letters.
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 (Pierre Fresnay) of having an affair
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