Panique

Julien Duvivier returned to France after his brief Hollywood career during World War II with this dark 1946 drama based on the 1933 novel Monsieur Hire's Engagement by the prolific Georges Simenon. Michel Simon stars as the eccentric Monsieur Hire, an aloof, misanthropic character in an unnamed French town who surreptitiously takes snapshots of townsfolk in acts that reveal the worst in mankind. He becomes infatuated with Alice (Viviane Romance), a beautiful new arrival in town, and practically stalks her as she reunites with her criminal lover Alfred (Paul Bernard), who has murdered a local woman and (with the help of Alice) frames Hire for the crime by rousing the town's suspicions of their brusque, cynical neighbor. Duvivier and co-screenwriter Charles Spaak make significant changes to Simenon's story, turning Hire into a more sympathetic figure and portraying certain townsfolk as poisonous personalities who enjoy scapegoating their odd neighbor. Duvivier shoots Hire through windows to emphasize his distance from the rest of the populace and he shows how willingly people turn on him in the face of unfounded gossip. Made just after the war, Panique was an indictment of Vichy France and Nazi collaborators, as well as a metaphor for France's treatment of Jewish citizens. The novel was more faithfully remade by Patrice Leconte in Monsieur Hire (1989), but this film offers a striking, dramatically satisfying, and contemporarily relevant noir-tinged portrait of ordinary people roused to a veritable lynch mob by playing on their prejudices and suspicions. Extras include a short documentary on subtitling, a new interview with Simenon’s son Pierre, a critical discussion about Duvivier, and a booklet. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)