Jenny Lamour sings in a music hall in postwar Paris, accompanied by her jealous husband Maurice Martineau on piano. He is blamed for murder when a lecherous movie producer who was flirting with his wife turns up dead. Enter Inspector Antoine, whose seasoned instincts lead him down a circuitous path.

The controversial Clouzot adapted his stray memories of Stanislas-André Steeman’s inciting novel into this marvelous free-form crime-thriller. Set in the desperate yet equally promising times of post-war France, Quai des Orfèvres threw out the rule book to make something both audacious and true.