Proud, eccentric, and antisocial, Monsieur Hire has always kept to himself. But after a woman turns up dead in the Paris suburb where he lives, he feels drawn to a pretty young newcomer to town and discovers that his neighbors are only too ready to suspect the worst of him.
Acting
Michel Simon's physicality — every stillness screams
Direction
Duvivier's shadow-drenched suburbia, guilt as architecture
Writing
Simenon adaptation: lean, cruel, inevitable

Director
Julien Duvivier
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Released weeks before France's infamous 1947 strikes, its mob violence read as political allegory.
Duvivier originally shot two endings; the bleaker cut was suppressed until 1989 restoration.