Le Corbeau

Le Corbeau (The Raven, 1943) is a taut French psychological thriller by Henri-Georges Clouzot — watch it online on iFILM. Pierre Fresnay plays Dr. Remy Germain, a physician in a quiet provincial town who wakes up one morning to find himself the subject of an anonymous letter.

More letters follow, each signed "Le Corbeau." The unknown writer doesn't stick to the doctor — soon every household in town is getting its private shames aired in public. An affair here, a back-room abortion there, petty cruelties everyone pretended not to notice. Suspicion spreads faster than the letters themselves. By the time the town turns on itself, the Raven could be the postman, the pharmacist, the worried wife next door.

Clouzot shot the film during the German occupation of France, and after the Liberation it was briefly banned — critics felt it portrayed the French too honestly. That uncomfortable accuracy is exactly what makes it last. Stream Le Corbeau online on iFILM and see why it still reads as one of the sharpest portraits of collective paranoia in cinema history.