Opening with a deadly shooting in a remote mountain cabin, photographed obliquely through wooden slats, Robert Hossein’s Les yeux cernés (US: Marked Eyes) uses the snowy, claustrophobic atmosphere of an Alpine village to heighten the tension of multiple mysteries. When the wealthy owner of the local sawmill is murdered, the man’s wife Florence (Michèle Morgan), from whom he had been separated for three years, returns to town to learn that she stands to inherit all his assets. While staying at the local inn, where she frequently hears the rattle of typewriter keys in the middle of the night (a gimmick possibly ripped off from Clouzot’s 1955 Diabolique), Florence begins to receive typewritten letters from a stranger offering her the name of her husband’s murderer for a sum. Played by director Hossein (who also wrote the story), sawmill foreman Franz befriends Florence and offers her support during the police investigation led by Friedrich (François Patrice). The relationship blossoming between the widow and Franz isn’t well-received by Franz’s clingy, teenaged girlfriend Klara (Marie-France Pisier), who works at the inn along with her parents. The film is theoretically a whodunit, but the murder mystery often seems secondary to the mysteries wrapped around it:  Who is sending the blackmail letters? Can Florence trust Franz? Is there really someone typing at night or is Florence going mad? Hossein and cinematographer Boffety implement a variety of camera angles and lighting arrangements, especially at night when the typewriter springs to life. A weak spot is the repetitive score, composed by Hossein’s father André, which injects endless variations of the same refrain to the point of distraction.