Despite their five films together, Gilles Grangier never directed Jean Gabin to a career highlight the way Marcel Carné or Jean Renoir had, but their collaboration produced a few solid crime dramas, including the dreamy Le désordre et la nuit (US: The Night Affair). Introduced a full fifteen minutes into the film, Gabin plays Inspector Georges Vallois, who’s assigned to investigate the murder of jazz club owner Simoni (Roger Hanin) who’d been working with a drug gang on the side. Vallois takes an interest — forensic, protective, romantic — in Simoni’s mistress Lucky Fridel (Nadja Tiller), a wannabe singer and daughter of a German industrialist, despite her dope-addled sensibilities and emotional unpredictability. Even with a plot that takes some over-complicated turns, The Night Affair somehow seduces the viewer through occasionally dream-like pacing and gauzy atmosphere throughout: the jazz nightclub and its smoky ballads, Gabin’s naturally languid style, the constantly drugged love interest, and the final destination in a sanatorium.