Because of the major impact they had as a team on both French cinema and cinema in general we tend to find ourselves speaking of Marcel Carne and Jacques Prevert as Pre and Post their collaboration, which spanned approximately ten years and delivered seven films, Jenny, Drole de Drame, Quai des Brumes, Le Jour se leve, Les Visiteurs du soir, Les Enfants du paradis and Les Portes de la nuit, which embedded themselves in the memory-banks of movie buffs the world over. Therese Racquin is post-Prevert Carne, dating from 1953, some seven years after their final collaboration Les Portes de la nuit and although Carne was never to make a wholly satisfying film without Prevert this is not as bad as you might think. It's tempting to find echoes of Double Indemnity inasmuch as there are scenes where 1) an adulterer lover hides behind an open door and 2) the 'inconvenient' husband is murdered on a train. Against this is the fact that in Double Indemnity it was the woman (Stanwyck) hiding behind McMurray's door as he ushered out Barton Keyes whilst here it is the man (Raf Vallone) hiding behind Therese's door as she speaks to her mother-in-law and in Indemnity Stanwyck's husband (Tom Powers) wasn't actually killed 'on' the train but his body was left on the tracks as IF he had fallen off. Here the confrontation between husband, wife and wife's lover takes place on the train and results in the husband's death. There was no way that Carne was going to make a BAD film but the Prevert touch is definitely missed. Signoret is, of course, superb but Raf Vallone was way out of his league in this company. The black and white photography enhances the mood and the 'feel' is about three-quarters right but the ill-contrived deus-ex machina lets down all that has gone before. Well worth watching.
Review of The Adultress
