51 thoughts on “John Charet’s Top 10 Favorite Film Noirs of All Time”

1. Great list John! I really liked reading your appreciation for each film. I also like the fact that your list doesn’t necessarily include the “usual suspects” of film noir. There’s a beautiful variety in it. The only one I haven’t seen is The Shanghai Gesture.

   I watched The Narrow Margin for the first time last weekend and thought it was great! Well, the huge fan of The Lady Vanishes that I am was certainly pleased with thriller taking place mainly on a train!

   It’s great to see Murder by Contract on your list! A film that deserves more attention. I love the score and thought it was very unique.

   Thanks for sharing that with us! Personally my favourite film noir is Kiss Me Deadly 🙂

2. These are all good film, some are better then good, but m definition is more restricted than yours. I see the genre as coming from a combination of post WW2 traumatic stress, the influence of german expression from european refugees to hollywood, budget restrictions, and post WW2 pulp fiction. My personal tastes. like yours, run more to the 1950’s crime films, but although many were influenced by the noir aesthetic, I would classify them as post noirs at best. My top ten film noirs, in no particular order, are:

   Shadow of a DoubtPhantom LadyWoman in the WindowMy Name is Julia RossThe KillersBorn to KillOut of the PastThe Red HouseIn a Lonely PlaceGun Crazy

3. Shadow of a Doubt
   Phantom Lady
   Woman in the Window
   My Name is Julia Ross
   The Killers
   Born to Kill
   Out of the Past
   The Red House
   In a Lonely Place
   Gun Crazy

4. My number one noir would be ‘Double Indemnity’. I always watch that film whenever it is on TV, and I have been to cinema screenings of it in London in the past.

   Best wishes, Pete.

5. Amazing list! You’re not trying to educate me are you John?

6. Hey Bill, thank you for the kind words 🙂 Although film noir officially kicked off with John Huston’s 1941 crime mystery The Maltese Falcon, the subgenre really matured in 1945. I know the general definition of post noir would be neo noir and while that term can be applied to any crime film made from 1960 and beyond, it has sometimes been said that 1967’s Point Blank was the first official neo noir film, but If that is the case, then how does one describe Samuel Fuller’s Underworld U.S.A., Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss? Thoughts? 🙂

7. Interesting list there Bill 🙂 I see one by Alfred Hitchcock, two by Robert Siodmak, two by Joseph H. Lewis, one by Robert Wise, one by Jacques Tourneur, one by Delmer Daves and one by NIcholas Ray. Nice to see a title by Delmer Daves, who has reportedly been cited by great former Chicago Reader film critic Dave Kehr as a wrongfully neglected filmmaker. British film critic Kim Newman compared Daves to Anthony Mann when it came to his westerns. I too consider Daves to be a highly underrated director as well 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂

8. As long as you see that as a good thing jcalberta, then sure 🙂 Nevertheless, I wrote this blog entry because it was a cinematic topic (for lack of better word) on my mind 🙂 I am trying to figure out what month would be best to compose a top 10 favorite westerns of all time because that one really excites me and I know much you love westerns jcalberta 🙂

9. Interesting choice Pete 🙂 Double Indemnity is an undisputed classic of the subgenre 🙂 Though I probably mentioned this in the blog entry, but a month or two ago I watched the 1946 version of The Postman Always Rings Twice and as usual, Lana Turner is simply gorgeous 🙂 Your thoughts? 🙂

10. Why thank you for the kind words Virginie 🙂 The Shanghai Gesture is simply superb and I am a huge fan of not only Gene Tierney, but it’s director Josef von Sternberg, who like Erich von Stroheim, also hails from Austria 🙂

    I too watched The Narrow Margin recently and it still delivers the goods 🙂 Speaking of The Lady Vanishes, that film and The Narrow Margin would fit perfectly on a double-bill.

    The minimalism on display in Murder by Contract reminded me not only of the films of director Robert Bresson, but also of Jean-Pierre Melville and Jim Jarmusch.

    Awesome to hear that you love Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly so much 🙂 That ranks high up there and who can forget that ending? 🙂

11. That’s a strong list, an interesting mix of the expected and the unexpected. I have no issues with your #1 pick, I too love the movie and think it probably ranks as the finest example of the filmmaking art anywhere. Some may argue it’s not fully noir, citing Hitchcock or the use of color. I don’t go along with them though as i think it ticks off enough noir boxes.

    The Shanghai Gesture is not a film that is often seen in such lists, but it’s a heady and exotic cocktail that just drips decadence and I’m happy to see it get highlighted here.

    And thanks for the reminder on The Narrow Margin, this is a super little express movie that I recall delivering a wonderful sucker punch when I first saw it many years ago. I must revisit it soon.

12. John, I wrote anout the Postman Always Rings Twice on my blog. Of course I prefer the version with Lana. https://beetleypete.com/2018/08/08/one-film-four-versions-the-postman-always-rings-twice/

13. Fantastic list, John. Many classic noirs I have seen and a few I haven’t. I will certainly check them out.

14. i think auteurism functions as a good introductory guide to american films, but i dont really consider most of them auteurs, they are the top directors who were handed the best scripts and worked with the best crews, and are an excellent way to begine ones film studies. but last night i saw an excellent film, Lonelyhearts, directed skillfully by Vincent J. Donehue, who was essentially a television director. but it was adapted by Dore Schary from a novel by nathanael West with john alton as the cinematographer and starring montgonery clift, myrna loy, and robert ryan, it was a superior film that has been ignored because the director is not in andrew sarris’pantheon. delmer daves is an excellent director and anthny mann is even better. were it not for my rather stuffed shirt, strict definition oof film noir, anthony mann would have definitely had some films on my list. but for me, film noir emerged from the post traumatic stress of world war two, had an aesthetic that combined german expressionism with low budgets, was fueled by the tremendous amount of unbridled writing in the pulp market and was replaced with more standardized studio production value at the end of the forties. dont get me wrong, i probably love those fifties crime pictures more than the forties noirs..but it irks me that the noir moniker is used to sell so many crime pictures that have few of the essential aesthetic qualities of the noirs.

15. I hear ya Bill 🙂 I personally believe that the auteur theory is every bit as insightful as it is misguided. As much as I love Andrew Sarris pantheon of directors, when all is said and done, it is all subjective regarding the directors he either pays backhanded compliments to or just dismisses. For example, I think NIcholas Ray deserved a higher ranking in Sarris book The American Cinema, which details the ranking of all the directors. Speaking of Anthony Mann, as you probably know, his career as a director hit a breakthrough in the 1940’s with a series of low-budget noir films that are some of the most inventive of it’s type. Alfred L. Werker is the credited director on He Walked by Night, but he was replaced during filming by Mann, but he was uncredited. I can see why some believe Mann should be given credit – it is photographed by Mann’s then regular cinematographer John Alton, written by semi-regular (for lack of better word) co-writer John C. Higgins and edited by Raw Deal’s Alfred DeGaetano. Nevertheless, this was early on in Mann’s career so nobody knew at the time whether or not he would continue working with those collaborators. I personally envision He Walked by Night as a film one has to view Alfred L. Werker as an equivalent to a production designer and Anthony Mann as the equivalent to a cinematographer. In other words, it was set up by Werker, but lit by Mann. Your definition of film noir is indeed the tradition one and I think it’s inevitable or unexpected distance from it’s original meaning might have been rooted in it’s increasing popularity at the time. As the term garnered more popularity, the original definition expanded beyond belief resulting in the subgenre becoming a victim of it’s own success creatively or commercially. Italian born French film critic Nico Frank is often credited for coining the term film noir to refer to Hollywood crime dramas, but the term was reportedly used earlier in French newspapers back in the 1930’s, but I think they were only referring to French films because the 30’s titles mentioned all hail from France – Marcel Carne’s Port of Shadows (1938) Jean Renoir’s La Bete Humaine, which were both released there in 1938. Thoughts? 🙂

16. Oh Yes, please do check them out Paul 🙂 I guarantee you will love them 🙂

17. I cant see how 1941’s Maltese Falcon can be considered the first film noir, as the term was not coined until 1946. For me, noir begins at the end of WW2 and ends at the beginning of the Korean war. I know that I have included films outside of the time frame, and shouldn’t have, but Hitchcock is one of those artists who stands outside of history. I also think the Wrong Man is as noirsh as Gun Crazy and They Live By Night, but, like Shadow of a Doubt. falls outside the strict noir timeline.

18. Why thank you for the kind words Colin 🙂 A never-ending debate has gone on ever since Vertigo’s initial theatrical release back in 1958 on whether or not it qualifies as an official noir film. Some have said that the film’s modernist graphic design and Saul Bass’s title sequence (he was highly popular throughout his entire career) disqualifies it. But I am with you, it features all of the tropes that we associate film noir with so it should be included.

    I agree with you on The Shanghai Gesture and it is a film that really deserves at least more popularity than it has been given. I mean it was directed by the great Josef von Sternberg. The legend who collaborated with the legendary Marlene Dietrich a decade earlier on a number of classics.

    Out of all the films Richard Fleischer directed during the Classical Hollywood era, The Narrow Margin ranks as my personal favorite. I mean for a film that is set mostly on a train, it packs tons of adrenaline. The energy never lets up once and we get tons of interesting twists and turns and clever dialogue.

    Btw, you probably noticed that I included Otto Preminger’s Angel Face as one of my choices 🙂 A film that you have talked about lovingly on your site before 🙂 I bet you were happy to see that one on there too 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂

19. In retrospect Bill, a lot of people credit The Maltese Falcon for at least popularizing the subgenre’s tropes. I am not saying they are entirely correct, but rightly or wrongly, fairly or unfairly, that is the film that it harkens back to. Everything before that or at least 1940, is credited as Proto Noir. I know it is truly confusing even for me. Considering how downbeat it is with the exception of it’s ending, The Wrong Man is sometimes implied as Hitchcock doing Fritz Lang. In this case, one of his American noirs. Would you place Lewis The Big Combo as a post-noir? Also, what years would you say film noir began and what year did it conclude from your point-of-view? 🙂

20. Incredible list, John. How can anyone argue with your #1? A masterpiece.
    I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t seen Leave Her to Heaven. It’s on my list. I’m not familiar with the Shanghai Gesture, but I’m intrigued.
    Very pleased to find Nic Ray’s They Live by Night on your list. It’s on my top 10 too. Hard to believe that this perfect noir was Ray’s debut. Cathy O’Donnell gives one of the best (and perhaps the most underrated performances) in cinematic history, IMO. The films ending…it rates up there with Bob Hoskins performance at the ending of The Long Good Friday. Powerful. Gut wrenching.
    My #1…The Night of the Hunter. A Touch of Evil…Asphalt Jungle…The Killing…Sunset Boulevard…The Letter…Double Indemnity…Rififi…Gun Crazy…those along with They Live by Night round out my top 10, the lower 9 in no particular order.

21. in my view, film noirs were made between 1946 and 1951. for me there is a huge difference the between the noirs and sam fuller’s pictures. i think it is a mistake to group the crime pictures of the 50’s with the noirs, although there is a similarity in subject matter, their cinematic treatment is miles apart. it is like saying the german artist george grosz is an impressionist becase he paints groups of people in cityscapes. i dont know who or why dated maltese falcon as the first noir. i dont see any noirish elements in it. it was made before WW2, and it was that war that created the america of the noirs. all those displaced, traumatized soldiers returning home to nothing. maltese falcon was published in 1929, on the eve of the depression and the 1941 movie seems to be to be closer to the depression era crime pictures than the postwar noirs. these characters are crafty con men, not delirious innocents caught in a web of assumed guilt.

22. if there were to be a legitimate post-noir genre, i think it would begin with vertigo and end with twin peaks. and i wouldnt count the phony noirs like after dark my sweet, body heat, blood simple, and the last seduction. as for point blank, that was a straight forward crime picture for the mod generation.

23. Yes, I am pleased you went for Angel Face over the more obvious pick of Laura, not that I wish to denigrate the latter in any way – it’s just that it’s the Preminger noir that gets talked up a lot and tends to throw some of his others in the shade.
    Angel Face is a remarkable movie and the impossibly attractive Jean Simmons gives one of her most (perhaps the most) remarkable performances in it.

24. Re earlier comments made in relation to Delmer Daves, I think he is certainly underrated, and I also feel he should be sen as an auteur. His films have his stamp upon them, despite the fact they all have various other people contributing to them Daves’ fingerprints are clear to see and his sensibility is apparent. It’s most evident in his great run of westerns, but it can be discerned too in his later, and often poorly regarded, melodramas and in films like The Red House and Dark Passage – that conviction that the human spirit is ultimately and inherently positive drives every one of his pictures, and it adds a warmth and compassion which I find very attractive.

25. Why thank you for the kind words Pam 🙂 In fact, I wrote an essay on Vertigo earlier in the year back in April 🙂
    As for Leave Her to Heaven, it is notable for being the first film noir shot in color, even though black-and-white ones outnumber those in color. The Shanghai Gesture also features Gene Tierney and it was directed by the great Josef von Sternberg, who is known here in America for his celebrated collaborations between him and lead actress Marlene Dietrich.
    I too love Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night and it is actually my second favorite film of his after Johnny Guitar 🙂 Though I said this in that little summary, it is impressive that Ray’s themes of alienation were presented so assuredly for a directorial debut. Usually, ones achieves by their third or fourth film. Beyond that even. They Live by Night feels more like a third, fourth or fifth film than it does a directorial debut. Ray proved himself a master filmmaker from the very beginning. The ending really hits one hard and an interesting comparison with Bob Hoskins fate at the end of The Long Good Friday. The only difference with The Long Good Friday is that Hoskins character’s ego is what sealed his fate.
    Your list is incredible too Pam 🙂 The Night of the Hunter is truly extraordinary and it is a shame that the film’s then polarized reception led to it’s director Charles Laughton to quit directing. He may have given us more masterpieces based on his work on The Night of the Hunter alone. I love all of your choices 🙂 Great to see The Killing on here as well. I see you have one directed by Charles Laughton. One directed by Orson Welles. One directed by John Huston. One directed by Stanley Kubrick. Two directed by Billy Wilder. One directed by William Wyler. One directed by Jules Dassin. One directed by Joseph H. Lewis and one directed by Nicholas Ray. Pretty impressive 🙂

    Btw, any links in this blog entry that stand out for you in particular? 🙂 You must have loved watching all of those intros and outros of TCM’s Eddie Muller, when those films were on TCM 🙂 I know how much you love film noir as much as me 🙂

26. Absolutely. I love Eddie Muller and John Osborne (RIP). I enjoyed all of Muller links. Noir Alley is terrific. It would be my dream job to host or co-host a series like that. I really enjoyed when Drew Barrymore would co-host with John Osborne and I loved their New York Times blog about classic film.

27. Insightful analysis Bill 🙂 Although I still credit a lot of the films mentioned (including Fuller’s) as noirs, your view is nevertheless a truly valid one. Another possibility is that some of these get credited as noir (rightly or wrongly) when it comes to it’s visual style as opposed to content. If you were to base it on content alone, than those other films called noir (fairly or unfairly) are only noirs in name only. I too do not believe that The Maltese Falcon was the first film noir ever made. For someone like myself, I tend to dig deeper before flat out accepting that. For example, Raoul Walsh’s They Drive by Night came out a year earlier and based on my knowledge, the year 1940 is often counted as the year film noir became an official subgenre.

28. Fascinating view Bill considering where you think post-noir should start (with Vertigo in 1958) and end (Twin Peaks). Do you see After Dark My Sweet, Body Heat, Blood Simple and The Last Seduction more as homages to noir or crime pictures than film noir in general? 🙂

29. Hey Pam, I think you are referring to Robert Osborne 🙂

30. The value of Sarris’ book is that if a person doesnt know where to start, they cant go wrong with the films of the cited directors, wherever they stand on the Sarris’s totem pole. As for actual auteurs in the european sense, there are very few in American cinema, and they are often not the best directors on the block. Cassavetes, Wiseman, Meyer, Ford, Chaplin, Anger, Allen, Spike Lee, Corman, Altman, Peckinpah……I used to think Sirk was a singular genius, but so many of the late fifties romantic melodramas at Universal were similar in quality, as they all had the same art directors, set dressers, and some of the cinematographers. Granted, Sirk was the best director at Universal (Hitchcock was there as well, but he didnt use the regular staff crews) but I cant say he was an auteur as the surfaces of his films were studio created. The mise en scene however was all his. and for the French cineastes, that in itself is what makes an auteur. They are way off though because they didnt have much access to the bulk of American pictures, and created heroes out of the few good directors whose work they saw. One of the benefits of watching loads of formulaic genre pictures is that eventually you can see where the real directorial talents lie becase they are all working with essentially the same material. And the French critics could tell the difference between a lazy director and an energetic one.

31. Yes, forgive me…Robert Osborne.

32. I do not know If you saw the link in the blog entry, but If you are interested in reading my essay on Vertigo, which appeared on this blog earlier in the year, click this link below 🙂

    Vertigo (1958) – A Ten-Part Personal Essay Written By John Charet

33. I see most of what was labelled neo noir as exploitation of a popular fad…although at least the Coens had a sincere love for the style. I also think the extension of the film noir definition was a commercial one, a ploy to sell dvds of a lot of forgotten pictures with no commercial value. same goes with the so called forbidden hollywood sets. if you watch a lot of pictures made under the code, you see that it was not slavishly followed. it has been suggested that the code was written to assure foreign markets such as India that there was nothing obscene or degenerate in Hollywood product.

34. With the exception of Forever Amber, A Royal Scandal and Rosebud, I actually love all of Otto Preminger’s films Colin 🙂 I agree that Laura seems to be the obvious choice, but it is in Angel Face that serves as that transitional film between the studio noirs he directed at 20th Century Fox and his independent period that consisted of literary adaptations whether they broke taboos (The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder) or not. I truly believe that Angel Face would fit perfectly on a double bill with Bonjour Tristesse, when one takes into account that the lead female is spoiled, wealthy and ultimately destructive. In fact, that is how I described it in the summary verbatim 🙂 Whereas Bonjour Tristesse is now regarded as an overlooked masterpiece of Classical Hollywood cinema, at the time, it seemed that Jean Seberg would not be properly understood (or at least for a very brief while) until Jean-Luc Godard casted her in 1960’s Breathless opposite Jean-Paul Belmando. Godard was reportedly a huge fan of Bonjour Tristesse. Back to Angel Face, I read somewhere that Jean Simmons either cut her hair short for the role or was required to or to make it look different at the very least. Interesting isn’t it? 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂

35. I always love listening to your analysis on cinema Colin and your view regarding Delmer Daves is no exception 🙂 Question, do you see any similarities (thematically speaking) between Daves and fellow director Anthony Mann when it comes to their westerns or any of the other genres the two dabbled in? 🙂

36. Every director you mention here Bill ranks as some of my all-time favorites 🙂 Nevertheless, I hear what you are saying regarding auteurism. As for Douglas Sirk, he was undoubtedly the best director of melodramas for Universal Pictures, but they were all produced by Ross Hunter. That opinion speaks volumes when one notices that all of Hunter’s productions without Sirk do not get the same attention. The melodramas Hunter produced without Sirk do admittedly lack the magic that the aforementioned director brought to them. You are correct that the directors the Cahiers du Cinema crowd were introduced to were few in retrospect. Nevertheless, they loved what they saw. The fact that these French critics elevated these directors to cinematic artists might have been a beautiful coincidence in retrospect. After all, whether they were appreciated in their own time or not, a lot of cinephiles like me and you remain huge fans of their work (Ford, Fuller, Hawks, Hitchcock, Ray and Walsh among others).

37. Food for thought there Bill 🙂 Nevertheless, I see it as a positive ploy because given how subjective opinions are, one might find a cinematic gem out of all of the forgotten titles. I too sometimes think that films produced under the code got away with slightly more than it should, but it was always done in a way that could fool head censors. That last sentence of yours is right on the money Bill 🙂

38. Well, both directors liked to focus on characters who had been emotionally wounded in some way, though Mann tended to put his through the wringer in a more brutal fashion. They both looked for redemption in their stories, tried to bring the humanist characteristics out in their protagonists where possible, often utilizing the female leads to act as the catalyst or driver for this – Felicia Farr in Jubal and 3:10 to Yuma, Maria Schell in The Hanging Tree, Julie London in Man of the West, Janet Leigh in The Naked Spur etc.
    Still, I’d say Mann had an edgier, cooler take on it all, Daves is warmer.

39. That is what I thought as well Colin 🙂 I do not know If it is just me, but have you ever sensed (and I mean this as a compliment) a Borzagian (alluding to Frank Borzage) sensibility to some of Delmer Daves work? Then again, it would not be surprising considering that he penned the scripts to both Flirtation Walk and Shipmates Forever. Nevertheless, you would probably only be familiar with it If you saw those two films 🙂

    Btw, what are your top 10 favorite film noirs of all-time and what links in the entry did you love the most? 🙂

40. I was wrong, the Neo Noir didnt end with Twin Peaks fire Walk With Here are my top ten Neo Noirs in chronological order,

    Vertigo (1958)
    Some Came Running (1958)
    Pretty Poison (1968)
    Mean Streets (1973)
    Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)
    Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
    At Close Range (1987)
    Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me (1992)
    Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
    No Country for Old Men (2007)

41. Great choices Bill 🙂 Two of the titles are on my Top 100 Favorite Films of All Time and my seventh favorite horror film of all time will be within the number 101-200 range 🙂 Eyes Wide Shut will be on that one as well 🙂 Pretty Poison is a true cult classic. As for Mean Streets, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Killing of a Chinese Bookie, At Close Range and No Country for Old Men? I love them too 🙂 I keep placing smiley emojis on this one because all of your titles put me in a jovial mood 🙂

42. I honestly couldn’t comment on the Borzage theory as I haven’t seen enough of his work, certainly not the two titles you referred to, to form an opinion. In total, I don’t suppose I’ve seen more than a half dozen of his movies and some of those, The Mortal Storm for instance, not for over two decades.

    I’d need to think more about my own top noir titles, and possibly change my mind on the first entries by the time I came near the end and then have to start all over again.
    I rather liked that link to jazz standards seeing as you ask.

43. Check out some of his work whenever you can Colin 🙂 As for your favorite noirs, I know Angel Face would rank somewhere within the top 100 undoubtedly 🙂
    That jazz music that I linked to really set the mood while reading it I bet? 🙂

44. I decided to bite as far as top 10 noir list is concerned. Just now I’d go for, in alphabetical order:
    Angel Face
    The Big Heat
    Criss Cross
    Double Indemnity
    In A Lonely Place
    The Killers (Siodmak)
    Odd Man Out
    Out of the Past
    Touch of Evil
    The Woman in the Window

45. Interesting list there Colin 🙂 Let’s see you have one directed by Otto Preminger. Two directed by Fritz Lang. Two directed by Robert Siodmak. One directed by Billy Wilder. One directed by NIcholas Ray. One directed by Jacques Tourneur. One directed by Carol Reed and one directed by Orson Welles. Speaking of Lang, did you know that his follow-up noir with Edward G. Robinson entitled Scarlet Street was an American remake of Jean Renoir’s 1931 crime drama La Chienne? 🙂 Interesting isn’t it? 🙂

46. Yes, and I resisted the temptation to include Scarlet Street instead of The Woman in the Window. It probably would have been the more obvious choice but I’ve always enjoyed ‘Window’ more, even if the noir credentials are frequently challenged.

47. ….and langs human desire was a remake of renoirs la bête humaine

48. That’s right Bill 🙂 In fact, it has been reported that Jean Renoir disliked both Scarlet Street and Human Desire.

49. Despite the esteem in which I hold Renoir, I prefer Lang’s Human Desire to Renoir’s Human Beast.

50. on the other hand, i find La Chienne infinitely superior to scarlet street. Langs first mistake is mocking the painters work. Secondly, Robinson’s character is stupid, repulsive and pathetic. We feel acute embarrassment for him throughout the picture, while Simon is intelligent, refined and naive in matters of love. On the whole, Renoir’s picture is more well-drawn, non-exploitive in scenes depicting both the murder and the execution of the innocent man (neither is shown) , and has a more adult perspective on both the pimp, the prostitute, and the victim…all of whom understand and accept their destinies. One of the best examles of Renoirs superior version is the believable scenes concerning the initial sales of the paintings, using the critic’s endorsement as opening the door to their success, while Lang’s version has the silly idea of them being discovered after four of them are sold to a sidewalk dealer at a ridiculously low price.Finally, I think that for Renoir, the bitch is ultimately the wife of both the colonel and the cashier, both of whom wind up as twins to one another. I like the way Renoir fades out the scenes after giving the audience the minimal required amount of imformation, while Lang exploits each scene for its maximum emotional exploitation.