Entre onze heures et minuit aka Between Eleven and Midnight (1949) Classic French Noir

"A Picaresque French Noir Almost in Screwball Territory" (Noirsville)

Directed by Henri Decoin 

Written by Marcel Rivet and Henri Decoin with some dialog by Henri Jeanson and based on a novel by Claude Luxel.

The film stars Louis Jouvet (Quai des Orfèvres) as L'inspecteur Carrel, Madeleine Robinson (Une si jolie petite plage) as Lucienne, Léo Lapara as L'inspecteur Perpignan, Monique Mélinand as Irma, Jean Meyer as Victor (as Jean Meyer de le Comédie Française), Simone Sylvestre as Léone, Janine Viénot as Himself, Robert Vattier as Charlie, Jacques Morel as Bouture, Yvette Etiévant as La fille, Marianne Hardy as Marie-Louise, Paul Barge as Le médecin légiste, Jean-Claude Malouvier as Himself, Jacques Roux as Himself, Gisèle Casadesus as Florence (as Gisèle Casadesus de la Comédie Française), Robert Arnoux as Rossignol

The story opens outside a Paris theater that is showing Edward G. Robinson's The Whole Town is Talking (1935), in it, BTW, Robinson plays a meek clerk who is one day mistaken for a gangster. The show is over and the movie goers are exiting. 

We over hear a couple critiquing the film complaining about how improbable the premise was, while at the same time we see a pair of women, identical twins. exiting. Then, as the husband is about the close the car door for his wife, she notices another pair of twin men who quite resemble her husband. 

Cut to a broad arch shaped, white tile tunnel, somewhere in 1948 Paris. It's lit by large square-ish fixtures lining its walls. At the top of the approach at the start of the retaining wall that slopes into the portal, a man in a fedora and trench coat moves towards a night watchman. 

Some sort of road construction project is blocking off the surface roadway at the right. A scrap fire burns, backlighting the watchman and reveals the shape of his one man sentry box. The man in the fedora nods his head as he passes, and starts dropping down the grade. 

We follow as he walks along the pedestrian side walk. His shadow is casting ahead of him highlighted ever more so,  by the white tiles. It darts into the small alcoves recessed in the wall for safety. 

We cut to a streetwalker peering out of one of the alcoves and looking towards the man in the fedora and trench coat. Another trick maybe. How Noir of her? Your mind might wonder more about it, does she go down on her knees in the alcove for an oral quickie? Does she hop in a car that stops, and do the deed there, ready to scramble into the car if the gendarmes show up? Does she get picked up and taken to her flop? It could be the subject of a whole different Film Noir. 

three shots...

We watch the next sequence and very stylistically it's just the man in the fedora's silhouette against white brick tile.  A car approaching quickly shortens the shadow.  Then it slows, shots bark out and we watch the shadows reaction. Then the man stumbles into the shadow and both begin a slow decent out of the frame.

the sedan speeds away....

Cut to a Paris elevated, or as my Parisian friend Thibaut calls them "areal metro tracks" A train is passing along a grade that has the tracks at window level to the houses on either side. A man is framed in an open window backlit by the light passing through the windows of a screeching train. 

He's from homicide, L'inspecteur Carrel. He 'at the scene of the murder of a disbarred lawyer. There's a funny sequence here when he asks the lawyers secretary how come if she was nearby why she didn't hear the shots, it's just as another passing el drowns out her answer. You can almost see the lightbulb go off in Carrel's. He realizes the reason. 

 Louis Jouvet as L'inspecteur Carrel

While this investigation is proceeding the police get a call from headquarters about another homicide in an automobile tunnel. Carrel grabs a couple of men and head to the scene of the crime. 

When he gets to the tunnel a prowl car is already on the scene. Carrel asks some questions then  asks to view the body. When they flip off the blanket covering the body he's in for a surprise. It goes Noirsville right here because the victim a criminal trafficker named Vidauban is the spitting image of Carrel. 

So Carrel tells his men to carry on on their end while he, with Vidauban's wallet, keys, papers, and the rest of the contents of his pockets decides to take Vidauban's place and investigate the case from the inside, sort of  playing both ends against the middle.

Carrel  arrives at Vidauban's home.

Vidauban has a nice apartment, well furnished and decorated with abstract figure sculptures. After Carrel has tossed Vidauban's apartment and ensconced himself in Vidauban's smoking jacket. His tactic pays off almost immediately. as a man breaks in looking for his share from some crooked deed that he and Vidauban pulled off. The man is surprised to find Vidauban there waiting in the dark. 

It turns out that the man found a letter from his wife telling him that she was running away with Vidauban, and he was going to try to find his cut of the 20,000,000 franks that Vidauban has stashed in a suitcase. Carrel is naturally mistaken for Vidauban who tells the guy that he obviously hasn't run away with his wife, and that he'll get his money soon. 

The rest of the film is very entertaining as strait arrow Carrel fakes his way through the Paris underworld encountering gangsters, hoodlums, squealers, pimps, prostitutes, stoolies, and probably the funniest of then all, his various mistresses. 

Noirsville

Madeleine Robinson as Lucienne

Decoin's direction is excellent, and Louis Jouvet is superb. We get a lot of Noir Stylistics in this film, plus a fashion show (hey it's Paris) where the dress creations are titled after low budget Crime films. Needs a restoration 8/10.