Here’s a short one with spoilers galore - you have been warned.
The Murderer Lives at Number 21 is the 1942 directorial debut of Henri-Georges Clouzot and it’s. . . unusual. Not quite a comedy. Not quite a thriller. Not quite a horror story. One hundred percent French.
Wens, a detective on the hunt for a serial killer who leaves calling cards at every crime scene, goes undercover at a boarding house. His girlfriend, a struggling singer, also goes to live in the boarding house in an attempt to become famous by catching the killer (she’s hoping fame will equal more stage jobs). The boarding house is inhabited by a magician, a disgraced doctor, a bird calling servant, a creepy toy maker, a blind former boxer, his amorous nurse, and a struggling author.
The author is a “spinster” called Mademoiselle Cuq. She states that to be a writer, you don’t need inspiration you need discipline. She sits everyday in the parlor of the boarding house with a typewriter to finish her latest work despite constant rejections from publishers. I like her determination. When the murders continue, the lady thinks of turning the contemporary horrors into gothic tales of terror, changing the streets of Paris into a dusty castle. The detective’s girlfriend suggests that the author instead keeps the setting the same, having it take place in the boarding house. In truth the singer is trying to reveal that she’s aware that the killer is among them . . . however, it just ends up getting the author killed. Whoops.
