[PANIQUE]

When a woman is murdered in a small French town, the killers target the perfect fall guy — Monsieur Hire (Michel Simon), an antisocial oddball with a taste for rare meats and runny cheese, whom the townsfolk already find irritating. Compounding matters, Hire harbors unrequited love for the local femme fatale (Viviane Romance), who happens to be the killer's lover and accomplice. The conspirators manipulate local opinion against Hire, and when evidence turns up in his apartment confirming the town's suspicions, things get violent. Adapting a 1933 novel by Georges Simenon, arguably the 20th century's greatest writer of crime fiction, director Julien Duvivier creates a provocative film aimed squarely at countrymen who succumbed to the fear and paranoia sown by the occupying Nazis. This was the first film Duvivier made in liberated France after his self-exile in Hollywood, and its stinging critique of French collaborationists nearly derailed his career. Michel Simon, one of France's most beloved actors, offers a memorable portrayal of an outcast who runs afoul of the town's irrational mob mentality. Duvivier maintained that PANIQUE was his finest film. It's one that, unfortunately, never goes out of date and never loses its impact.