Named in honor of France’s pioneering crime book imprint, which had published Chandler, Hammett, and many other Anglo-American authors and may have inspired the film noir label, Série Noire, one of Pierre Foucard’s three feature films as director, boasts a cast that gives it the gravitas and impact it might not otherwise deserve. Henri Vidal portrays Léo Fardier, a police inspector going undercover as a prison inmate who befriends his “cellmate,” Corsican gangster Mariani (Albert Dinan), to make connections with Mariani’s criminal network on the outside. After being “released” from the pen and delivering a letter to Mariani’s moll, the immediately smitten Éliane (Monique van Vooren), Fardier ingratiates himself with the whole criminal gang except Jo (Robert Hossein), who not only loves Éliane but is also sneaking around with rival gang leader Ménard (Roger Hanin), a conflict which will culminate in a bloodbath. Fans of Erich von Stroheim should know going in that his role here (it’s his penultimate film) is pretty small, but his demise to the tinkling sound of a music box is one of the film’s finest scenes. The action choreography is occasionally over-the-top, such as the parking garage rumble in which men are run over and crushed by lifts, but cinematographer Cotteret creates plenty of noir ambience through shadows, cages of light, oblique angles, and even a flashing “HOTEL” sign just outside the window.