Julien Duvivier’s 1947 French film noir Panique will be screened in Film History on Wednesday, January 31 at 4:00 pm in the Bijou, thanks to The Tournées Film Festival. The screening is open to the public.
Critically lambasted and shunned by postwar French audiences upon its release in 1947, Julien Duvivier’s Panique has since come to be recognized as a long overlooked treasure of French film noir. The film was the first of several adaptations of Mr. Hire’s Engagement, one of the finest novels by legendary Belgian crime writer Georges Simenon, a coal-black tale of the scapegoating of the eccentric bachelor Mr. Hire following the murder of a woman in his Paris neighborhood. Starring Michel Simon and Viviane Romance, Panique is a thriller that also provides deep insight into the mentality of the lynch mob and the pessimistic world view that existed in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Tournées Film Festival is made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S., the Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), the French American Cultural Fund, Florence Gould Foundation and Highbrow Entertainment.
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