The Strange Mister Victor

Director: Jean Grémillon

1938 / 103min / DCP

Setting its scene in the rowdy, wide-open port city of Toulon, Grémillon’s unjustly little-known drama stars Provencal actor Raimu as a well-respected shopkeeper who, unbeknownst to his neighbors, is running a front for a ruthless criminal gang. The first of several movies in which Grémillon, who had first established himself as an experimental filmmaker, began to work within established commercial genre forms—in this case, the crime thriller—all while continuing to give the same precedent to the matters of atmosphere and (abnormal) psychology that had marked his earlier works.

4K restoration completed by Pathé from the original nitrate negative. Premiered at the Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival.