The premise of this film by Henri-Georges Clouzot sounded promising to me as the story about a town being torn apart by malicious rumors and misinformation seemed especially apt for the Internet era. Unfortunately the film is only shallowly committed to this theme and is more interested in the hunt for the writer of the poison pen letters, making it feel more like a murder mystery film. Ironically the backstory of the film itself parallels the story in a way as this was made by a German production company while French was under German occupation during the Second World War. Both Clouzot and the lead actor Pierre Fresnay got into a great deal for trouble for making it as rumors were spread about this film attacking the French people as a whole.
Rémy Germain is an unmarried doctor specializing in obstetrics who works in an unnamed small town whose tranquility is ruined by a poison pen letter campaign. The anonymous letters signed under the name of the Raven accuse Germain of performing illegal abortions and of having an affair with Laura, the young wife of the elderly Dr. Vorzet, a psychiatrist. Most people seem to dismiss the accusations but more letters are sent to almost everyone in town. They repeat the accusations against Germain but also threaten to reveal secrets about other people in town unless action is taken against Germain. Things take a turn for the worst when a patient at the hospital receives such a letter and commits suicide. Suspicion falls on Marie Corbin, a nurse at the hospital and also Laura’s sister, as she has been previously noted as being dismissive of the patient’s chances of recovery and is unfriendly towards Germain. An angry mob comes for her and she is arrested. For a while the town enjoys peace but then a new letter drifts down onto the congregation during Sunday Mass.
The relevance of this premise is immediately apparent to our present times as the wild accusations take root in the town and ferment unrest. The rumors are insidiously powerful because they mix bits of the truth together with implausible claims and most people in town have some embarrassing secret that they would rather not be exposed. It gets to the point where even the sight of an innocuous-looking letter in an envelope is enough to make everyone give it the evil eye as they know that no good can come from opening and reading it. The town authorities struggle to contain the crisis and a manhunt is launched to uncover the identity of the Raven. This is all good stuff but that is as far as the film is willing to go with the theme. Germain is curiously not much affected by the accusations and though he and Laura secretly meet to discuss the problem, the mob doesn’t go after either of them. The sole target of everyone’s ire is the Raven as everyone seems to not put much stock in the truth of the accusations. This of course doesn’t feel true at all and makes the townspeople seem remarkably resistant to misinformation and manipulation.
That’s why this film is really a kind of who-dun-it mystery focused on identifying and catching the Raven rather than a serious exploration of what rumor-mongering can do to a community. It gets worse as the film doesn’t want the audience to guess who the perpetrator is too early and so throws in all kinds of twists and misdirections. I do like that you can practically see it in Germain’s eyes as he wonders just how much he can truly know someone even years after living in the same town together but it basically throws out all rational motives and established relationships on the part of the Raven to stymie straightforward deductions. Then again, in the end it is revealed that the Raven’s sole motivation is to cause trouble just for the sheer sake of it, which makes him a kind of troll to the community that presages the Internet era.
Still the film makes Germain suffer too little from the letter campaign and the Raven doesn’t seem to follow through either after threatening to reveal more of the secrets of the other people in town. I must conclude that Clouzot either severely overestimated ordinary people’s collective intelligence in blaming the writer of the letters rather than the target of the campaign or he only had murder mystery films as a frame of reference. This was after all made in 1943. The idea behind the film’s premise is sound but the film doesn’t really follow through and as such I judge this to be merely an okay film that is watchable but not anything outstanding.