Good concept, poorly executed.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Le Corbeau is directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot and co-written by Clouzot and Henri Chavance. It stars Pierre Fresnay, Ginette Leclerc, Pierre Larquey and Micheline Francey. Music is by Tony Aubin and cinematography by Nicolas Hayer.We are in a small French town, the actual name of which is not known and is inconsequential. A series of poison pen letters are being sent out to the town dignitaries, accusing them of all sorts of inappropriate operations. The letters are signed by someone calling themselves Le Corbeau (The Raven), and pretty soon the town starts to implode as suspicion and mistrust runs wild.Famously it was the film that saw Clouzot banned from making films, the then young director receiving flak from all quarters of the Vichy Government - Catholic Church - Left Wingers and others too! The asides to the Nazi occupation of France at the time not being acknowledged until some years later. That very theme obviously holds considerable weight, but it's not the be all and end all of Clouzot's magnificent movie.Clouzot and Chavance tap into the troubling fallibility of the human race, portraying a town quickly submerged in moral decay. There is caustic observations on the higher echelons of society, a clinical deconstruction of a town quick to cast aspersions without thinking of consequences, while the script boasts frank intelligence and no fear of censorship. That a town so ripe in respected denizens could become so diseased, so quickly, makes for powerful viewing. All are guilty as well, nobody escapes, even the youngsters are liars or cheats, thieves or rumour spreaders, this be a Hades town where negativity runs rife and leads to broken bodies, broken souls and broken human spirits.Very much a bastion of proto-noir cinema, it's photographed with an awareness to marry up to the acerbic thematic at work. Shadows feature prominently, even in daylight, canted angles are used to great effect, broken mirrors perfectly imbuing the fractures of the human psyche. A number of scenes are startlingly memorable, a funeral procession and a church service interrupted by one of The Raven's letters are superbly staged, the pursuit of a nurse through the cobbled streets is menacing, and the finale is hauntingly raw. Top performances across the board from the cast brings further rewards, whilst simultaneously adding more plaudits to Clouzot's direction. All in all, a remarkable, fascinating and potent piece of cinema. 9/10

An odd but tremendously potent mix of a 'quiet' non-violent but very tense noir thriller, a deeply dark humored, sometimes blackly comic look at human nature, and a political tale of moral hypocrisy in a small town.By the end I was riveted, moved and provoked. I was even more impressed when I learned more about the history of the film. Made while France was under occupation by the Nazis, the theme of neighbor turning against neighbor takes on an even deeper and more chilling context. A film with no hero and many villains, it is challenging, well acted and physically beautiful. How sadly ironic that film-maker Clouzot was castigated after the war for being a Nazi collaborator for making the film under the thumb of the Nazis (who, of course, controlled the French film industry at the time), when this is about as clearly an anti-collaborationist film as one could imagine. I'm amazed the Nazis didn't stop it's release, much less that they financed it. This is truly subversive cinema at its finest.

Someone unknown sends a series of slanderous letters to various people in a small French town, the motive apparently being to drive a local medical doctor out. The letters are signed: "The Raven".On the face of it, the story is a kind of whodunit. Who is the Raven, and what motivates him or her? That's the mystery. There's no shortage of suspects, including the very doctor who supposedly is being hounded.But the film, released during the dregs of the Nazi regime in Germany, contains relevant political subtext and themes, not the least of which is the idea that someone, anyone, can be an informer. Knowing a town's dirty little secrets, the rumors, people's weaknesses and vices can be deadly in the hands of someone with a penchant for writing, and a desire to tell all. What the raven writes is to some extent true. And the truth turns the townsfolk against each other.The raven, as an anonymous entity, functions as a whistle blower, a snitch, a spy, a secret agent, a kind of Deep Throat. Thematically, the film is dark and subversive.The film's B&W lighting is noirish and effective. I especially liked the sequence where a naked light bulb hanging down from the ceiling gets swung back and forth, like a pendulum, as two characters converse about moral pendulums of right and wrong, sanity and insanity, light and darkness. Where does one begin and the other end, asks a character.Although "The Raven" gets off to a slow start, the plot and the thematic import do pick up. Two-thirds in, the film curves deep, both as a whodunit and in its cinematic statement on the issues germane to whistle blowing and informing.

Simply put, a best-of-class.I was clueless from start to finish. Genuinely unpredictable!The depiction of a small town's pettiness is so accurate you'll think twice before going to one :)! An IMDb reader (W. Fickling) summed it up impeccably: "howl of rage at the small-mindedness and pettiness of small town bourgeois communities". An Amazon reviewer (Trevor Willsmer) enlightened us with his interpretation of the Raven(s) as the Nazis, or their informers at least, undermining the "natural solidarity" of French towns.All actors are fine, Laura, Denise and her daughter included (the obvious candidates for bad acting, because of their somewhat plain roles).A bleak view of human nature, like the classic "dialogue that shows what the director really thinks" between the doctors about human nature and how everybody is not very clean after all (when Dr. Germain burns with a lamp, proving he was wrong).A refreshingly moving film, requires your undivided attention to follow the plot.