The IMDB French noir pioneer Didier Dumonteil weighs in on David Eady's take on a lesser-known standout in the adaptations of Boileau-Narcejac's distinctive psychological crime novels. To DD's point about Malefices: happily, it turned up several years after he left this review, and we were thrilled to present it in 2019 as part of THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 6--it's one of their spookiest!

I have always thought that "Les Visages De L'Ombre" was Boileau-Narcejac's best novel,even Superior,in several respects to the more celebrated "Celle Qui N'Etait Plus" (which Clouzot rewrote as "Les Diaboliques") and to "D'Entre Les Morts " (transferred to the screen by Hitchcock as "Vertigo".Much to my surprise,this movie was never released in France,at a time when their novels were extremely popular over here :in the late fifties and sixties,there was "Les Louves" (Saslavsky,1957); "Meurtres En 45 Tours "(Etienne Périer,1960 from "A Cœur Perdu"); "Maldonne" (Sergio Gobbi, 1969); and "Maléfices" (Henri Decoin, 1962, starring Juliette Greco,which is never to be found: however,given the quality of the book,it must possess considerable appeal for fans of Boileau-Narcejac's style.)

These books are par excellence"the novel of the victim," and the victim is always a man; women are all femme fatale in these works which some may find misogynist."Les Visages De L'Ombre", as an user already pointed out,is a cruel story: so hard and so desperate was the ending that the editors asked their winning team to sweeten it, to make it more moral: they did not--but,anyway, are their other detective stories so optimistic?

Among all these murder mysteries, "Les Visages De L'Ombre " is the hardest to transfer to the screen: when you read it,you live the whole story through a blind man's eyes,so to speak.You do not know what Christiane and David (Hubert in the book) feel; in the last part of the movie,the actors are compelled to overplay, whereas in the book,the characters remain "neutral", even kind. (The suspense is increased tenfold.)

David Eady made the best of the novel: he certainly could not direct a movie with a central character surrounded by fog and smoke and darkness. His actors direction is faultless--particularly John Ireland as Maxime, the unfortunate hero's brother.He made Christianne's lover an amateur painter--which is a very good way of introducing the peach tree episode...