Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Alex da Silva Detective Pierre Fresnay (Wens) goes to stay in a boarding house in the guise of a priest in order to catch a serial killer – Mr Durand. His annoying girlfriend Suzy Delair (Mila) also checks in and we meet a cast of characters who may or may not be the killer.The film starts well with the sequence of the drunk lottery winner in the bar and the mysterious woman wanting to befriend him. We follow his story but it is pretty short-lived. It's a gripping beginning and one that draws you into the film which, at this point, looks like it is going to be an effective thriller. The next memorable scene comes when the petty criminal is sitting on the bus shelter and insulting the policeman – very funny. However, that's where the comedy should have stopped. Unfortunately, the whole film descends into a comedy/mystery and so all tension is diffused and the audience just watches without any real emotional connection. It could have been so much better.There are other pluses - the dialogue is sharp and magician Jean Tissier (Triquet) lives in an amusing room cluttered with objects that are no longer functional - and minuses – Delair's voice is annoying and on my copy, the subtitles weren't quite in sync so it helped that I understood French so as to follow who was saying what. As entertainment, the film is an OK whodunit like many others.

morrison-dylan-fan With a friends birthday coming up,I felt that it would be the perfect time to introduce her to the work of auteur film maker Henri-Georges Clouzot. Struggling to find a title which would appear the most accessible,I remembered reading an excellent review by a fellow IMDber on a Clouzot movie which features a light comedy touch,which led to me getting ready to visit number 21.The plot:Walking back home after winning the lottery jackpot,a man is killed by a stranger,who leaves a card with "Monsieur Durand" written on it.As the killing spree continues and the press discover that a serial killer is terrorising the streets, L'inspecteur Wenceslas Wens is told that he must uncover the identity of the stranger in 3 days time,or he will be sacked from the police.Ignoring his girlfriend Mila Malou's failing attempts to become a stage star,Wens finds himself hitting nothing but dead ends.Giving Wens his first glimmer of hope,a former criminal goes to Wens to tell him that he recently got some furniture from a boarding house called 21,Rue Junot,which contained the "Durand" cards that are left next to the victim.Desperate to track down Durand,Wens decides to take up a room at the place by pretending to be a pastor.As he starts to build character profiles for each of his fellow guests,Wens is caught by surprise,when he discovers that Malou has also gone undercover as a guest in Rue Junot,in order to help Wens uncover Durand's true identity.View on the film:Before I get to the film,I have to mention that Masters of Cinema have given the film a fantastic transfer,with the picture perfectly capturing the atmospheres that Clouzot is building,and the sharp audio allowing the audience to hear ever murder that Durand makes. Transferring from being the main screenwriter for the Nazi- controlled studio Continental Films to directing one of their titles,co-writer/(along with Stanislas-André Steeman) director Henri-Georges Clouzot marks his feature film debut with a tremendous, stylised precision. Capturing the darkness that France was trapped in,Clouzot and cinematographer Armand Thirard give the murders a brittle texture,thanks to Clouzot & Thirard placing the viewer in Durland's mind with long first-person tracking shots,which force the viewer to be face to face with the victim.Unleashing a decaying Film Noir atmosphere by soaking the streets of France in raw grey and blacks,Clouzot and Thirard reveal a remarkable delicacy in crossing two distinctive moods smoothly over each other.Clouzot packs 21 Rue Junot with Screwball Comedy characters who are each given their moment to shine in a soft,contrasting light,whilst never making the Film Noir tension freeze,by each of the Screwball punchlines leading Wens and Malou close to uncovering Durand.Spending the last few years working for a Nazi- run studio,Clouzot takes a clever,subtle approach to attacking the Nazis, (who demanded that Clouzot change the films location from the UK to France)which goes from residences of 21,Rue Junot seeing the murder victims as worthless "outsiders",to the Durand's identity being revealed in connection to a Nazi salute.Following Georges Lacombe's near-forgotten first adaptation of Stanislas-André Steeman's Wens/Malou books,the screenplay by Clouzot give Wens & Malou's relationship a charming playfulness,due to both of them being given opposing personalities,with Malou shooting witty one liners across the screen,whilst Wens digs deeper in 21,Rue Junot's Film Noir foundations.As the couple shoot Screwball punch lines at each other,Clouzot keeps the harsh Film Noir atmosphere building to an excellent conclusion,via always keeping Durland's murder cards one step ahead of the duo,as Durland's cards go from landing on an unlucky lottery winner,to being left covered in blood right outside the police station.Reuniting after Lacombe's title,the cute Suzy Delair, (who along with being a singer on the stage,was also Clouzot's girlfriend) and Pierre Fresnay both give wonderful performances as Wens/Malou. Bouncing across the screen,Delair gives Malou the perfect elegance,which allow Malou to have fun flirting at Wens,whilst making sure that the seriousness of the killings is always towering above Malou.Catching each of Malou's sly glances, Pierre Fresnay gives a great performance as Wens,with Fresnay kicking Wens desperation to uncover Durland with a silky-smooth,charismatic charm,as Clouzot reveals what is hidden inside 21,Rue Junot.

FilmCriticLalitRao By and large, individual genres do not mix well in cinema. For this reason, most filmmakers tend to make films belonging to a particular genre. However, there have been exceptions to this role. One can cite the films by Alfred Hitchcock where comedy has been mixed with suspense and thriller. French film 'The Murderer Lives at Number 21' also belongs to this category of films where one can find an absolutely perfect harmony of comedy with suspense. In this film, Clouzot has used all tricks up his sleeve to entertain his audiences up to the hilt. There is enormous interest to be taken in all scenes as Clouzot's characters speak a lot about France and its people. French culture especially mannerisms of ordinary French people have been vividly described. A simple visit to the guest house would suffice to know how it is difficult for the police to arrest a killer who has put the entire city in trouble because of his foolishness. As a family film, 'L'Assassin habite au 21' does enormous justice to the topic portrayed in the film. However, those viewers who have placed bets on the ending would be disappointed.

oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx This was Clouzot's directing debut, having graduated from being a screenwriter feeling that his script for Le dernier des six was implemented by Georges Lacombe to the letter, and yet not being satisfied with the result. It's a murder mystery based on a novel by the same author behind Le dernier des six, Clouzot adds comic touches which act as kindling to set the fire alight.Stylistically they're very different, and yet it feels like Paul Verhoeven and Henri-Georges Clouzot were cut from the same philosophical cloth. It seems under-remarked upon that L'assassin habite a 21 is a pretty anti-clerical movie, there's blasphemous jokes about the celibacy of Catholic priests and the Holy Trinity. You also get the feeling, from this movie made under the Occupation, that this is a "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right" kind of movie, where the French characters are shown with acid misanthropy, but also, that the allusions to the Nazis, really trivialise them, in the manner of Lubitsch. The final scene of the movie contains a quite hilarious snub of the Nazis that is brazen but too droll for any Nazi to catch.Clouzot worked for Continental-Films, which was controlled by the Nazis, its chief Alfred Greven reporting directly to Max Winkler the Reichsbeauftragter (Reich Commissioner) for German films. Clouzot attended parties with Greven and his mistresses, with his own mistress Suzy Delair (Mina Milou, the female lead of this movie). I get this feeling like with some of Verhoeven's characters in Black Book, that they were riding the tiger's back, trying to survive and enjoy themselves in a world of mad people. There's a feeling when a character dies that it's a Darwinian incident, that you're an idiot if you flash money around and wander the streets at night when there is a spate of robbery homicides going on in your district.There's a swagger to the direction of this film, a boastful assuredness that I found really refreshing. There is also a balance to the characteristic misanthropy of Clouzot's film, an offsetting humour. I think Clouzot belongs up there with Nabokov and Verhoeven as supremely competent individuals laughing in the dark. L'assassin habite a 21 was quite the guilty pleasure for me!