In noir, the moral universe seems constantly to be on trial, particularly in the films of Julien Duvivier. The French master made some of Europe’s bleakest noirs (Panique, 1946; Deadlier Than the Male, 1956), but perhaps none as hopeless as L’affaire Maurizius (US: On Trial). While its nihilism comes in a more refined and civilized package than the others, this noir drama speaks to a broader systemic injustice, a legal system in a modern democracy in which prosecutors know their charges are false, witnesses lie on the stand, and innocent men are sentenced to live in a cell for life. (Just about everyone in this story will come to ruination, if not death.) Our horror at such a system is embodied in idealistic young student Etzel Andergast (Jacques Chabassol), who learns that his father, the great prosecutor Wolf Andergast (Charles Vanel), made his name and reputation by convicting a man named Léonard Maurizius (Daniel Gélin) for murdering his wife based on merely circumstantial evidence 18 years earlier. Driven by moral curiosity, which soon turns to indignation, then to a nervous breakdown, Etzel plays sleuth, determined to learn the truth and secure Léonard’s freedom. He tracks down key figures involved in the case, including the father (Denis d’Inès) of the convicted, who is preparing to file his eighth appeal, and the single witness, Grégoire Waremme (Anton Walbrook), who describes the intense jealousy felt by the murdered Elisabeth (Madeleine Robinson) toward her sister Anna’s (Eleonora Rossi Drago) relationship with Léonard. Using his own screenplay adaptation of Wassermann’s novel, Duvivier delivers a gripping drama narrated through several flashbacks, each slightly surreal in tone (vacant walls, deep focus, distant organ and strings playing). In the exterior of the house that serves as the crime scene, production designer Douy and cinematographer Lefebvre have created a nearly perfect noir landscape, complete with fog, lamplight, wrought-iron gate, drifting leaves, and, of course, a corpse.