When wealthy businessman Brignon (Charles Dullin) is murdered in his home one night, it turns out three related suspects were each there at different times: aspiring star Jenny Lamour (Suzy Delair), who had been flirting with Brignon to advance her career; her jealous husband and musical accompanist Maurice Martineau (Bernard Blier); and close friend of the couple Dora Monnier (Simone Renant). It’s up to police inspector Antoine (Louis Jouvet) to puzzle together all the motives and alibis. As would be expected from director Henri-Georges Clouzot, Quai des orfèvres is an impeccably crafted crime film — an amalgam of melodrama, police procedural, and classic whodunit — with an exceptionally mature script and a cast of characters who are distinctly human and complicated even if, at times, over-the-top. While impermissible in American films of the period, homosexuality emerges as a matter-of-fact theme, not only in its subplot (“I’m a funny kind of girl”) but in its theatrical milieu and unusual lifestyles (Antoine, for example, is guardian to a black youngster whom he brought back “from the colonies” while with the Foreign Legion). Clouzot and cinematographer Thirard in some ways reach back to French poetic realism by combining moments of naturalism (note the frequent use of diegetic, sometimes chaotic, music) with studio sheen (the crime scene romantically lit by fireplace) and a variety of artistic camera angles.