 |
|||
 |
Empty
|
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
Le Corbeau
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Our DVD Price: £7.99 RRP: 
Availability In Stock - should be despatched within 72 hours. This product will be dispatched from Guernsey. Delivery times
Earn 35 Bonus Points when you buy this product. More info |
Film Description
A dark film produced during the German Occupation from a pessimistic Clouzot. A village suffers a spate of poison-pen letters written by 'The Raven' which turns everyone against everyone else. The film was attacked by the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press (for attacking the French moral character) and the Catholic Church, and was banned after the Liberation. Its fortunes were revived when it was championed by French intellectuals as a subversive tale.
Film Information
| Director | Henri-Georges Clouzot | ||||
| Starring | Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc
|
||||
| Genre | World Cinema
|
||||
| Country | France | Language | FRENCH | Year | 1943 |
DVD Extras
Remastered print; Introduction by film critic Ginette Vincendean.
Technical Details
| Certificate | PG | Length | 92 mins | Label | OPTIM | ||
| Cat No | OPTD0185 | Format | DVD | Colour | |||
| Region | 2 | Aspect | 1.33:1 | ||||
| Subtitles | English. | ||||||
4 Stills
 |
 |
Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by Pasquale Iannone on 19th January 2005
The German Occupation brought Clouzot a long-term contract as a writer-director for the Nazi-controlled Continental Films, who had been handed a brief by Goebbels to produce unchallenging films for the French public. They certainly didn’t get it with Le Corbeau (1942), Clouzot’s second film as director, which has often been called ‘the first true French film noir’. Its assured direction, atmosphere of moral corruption and the bitter and caustic bite of the film’s dialogue ensured a storm of controversy and it was attacked by the right-wing Vichy regime, the left-wing Resistance press and the Catholic Church.
Based on a true story, the film tells of a provincial French town plagued by suspicion, paranoia and hatred after the appearance of several anonymous poison-pen letters signed only ‘Le Corbeau’ (‘The Raven’). It was uncomfortable mirror to hold up to occupied wartime society and the film was banned after the Liberation, only for its fortunes to be revived when it was hailed as a subversive masterwork by a number of prominent French cultural figures.
View more reviews by Pasquale Iannone
Review by Barry Forshaw on 18th March 2005
At last, we are able to see one of Clouzot’s most acerbic classics, unseen in this country for many years. Ironically, Otto Preminger re-made the film in Hollywood, but (ruthlessly unsentimental director though he was) it’s unlikely that Hollywood censorship of the day would have allowed the frankness of Clouzot's blistering original – the eroticism and abortion themes must have been homogenised (impossible to say, as Preminger’s re-make has similarly been unseeable). Henri-George Clouzot’s classics The Wages of Fear and Les Diaboliques have long whetted our appetites for Le Corbeau, a dark and subversive study of human nature starring Pierre Fresnay and Ginette Leclerc.
A wave of hysteria sweeps the small provincial town of St Robin when a series of
poison-pen letters signed “Le Corbeau” (The Raven) denounce several
prominent members of society. Starting with the village doctor, the sinister trickle of letters soon becomes a flood, and no one is safe from the malicious accusations, which include abortion and drug addiction. Condemned by the political left and right and the church upon its release in 1943, Clouzot was banned from filmmaking for two years after making the film.
View more reviews by Barry Forshaw
This film is part of the following Customer Film Lists
10 Films To Make You Sit Bolt Upright by Joe Carter
Recommendations from fellow customers
by Jean Vigo
More films directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot
Henri-Georges Clouzot Collection
Quai Des Orfevres (Clouzot, 1947)
More films starring Pierre Fresnay
by Jean Renoir
| Special Offers | ||||||||||||||||
|
More Great Offers
|
| BestSellers | ||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Recommended by MovieMail | ||||||||||
|
A curated collection of the best DVDs
Latest Additions
|
||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||
| Just Released |
|
Water Lilies Roberta Cloak and Dagger Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont Garage |
| Coming Soon |
|
Robbery Up the Yangtze Seven Days to Noon Map of the Human Heart La Vie de Jesus (Masters of Cinema) |
|
||
| Home | Film Catalogue | New Releases | Special Offers | Top 30 | ||
|
||
| Film Collections | Film Media | News | Your Account | Help | Become a MovieMail affiliate | ||
|
||
For questions or assistance, call us on (+44) 0844 776 0900 or email on enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk © 2004-2007 MovieMail, Ltd., All Rights Reserved. Find out more about MovieMail |
||
|
The Sorrow and the Pity
The Leopard
The Complete Jean Vigo
The Wages Of Fear
Pepe Le Moko
