QUAI DES ORFEVRES   1947 Directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot 107 minutes In French with English subtitles

This is one of the most cherished French films of all time... but somehow it has been criminally neglected outside its home country. Director Henri-Georges Clouzot had been banned from filmmaking for two years because he made a scandalously subversive film called Le corbeau during the German occupation of World War ll. When he finally returned to the cinema, he blew audiences away with this breezy thriller. Afterwords, he would go onto making several of the greatest masterpieces of cinema such as Les diaboliques and Wages of Fear.

This is one hell of a film in terms of atmosphere - the thick mood is pitch-perfect and captures France still frozen and isolated in post-World War ll devastation. The story centers on a married woman with a dodgy past and a jealous husband. When she goes to sign an acting contract at a creepy businessman's private home, he ends up dead. The film kicks off from there and the progression of events is dazzling. This is indeed a thriller, but the real thrill isn't the plot - it's the direction, which is razor-sharp, innovative and beautifully crafted. Every scene feels like an act of creation. Another nice aspect is that even though we see France in ruins during the aftermath of the war, it also has a fully-charged erotic longing surging through it. This is an example of a movie as spellbinding craft, with an endlessly deep richness... far more exciting than any big-budget cgi spectacles being pushed in the marketplace today.

This will be a pristine high-definition projection.