In Julien Duvivier’s Voici le temps des assassins (US: Deadlier Than the Male), the riveting Danièle Delorme plays one of noir’s most demented femmes fatale in Catherine, the penniless young girl who re-enters the life of her estranged father André Chatelin (Jean Gabin) seeking financial and emotional support. Despite her demure manner and humble background, Catherine proves to be a heartless schemer, her basket of sins containing theft, fraud, manipulation, even murder (and, perhaps worst of all, cruelty to animals); it’s extremely satisfying to watch her getting literally whipped late in the film as retribution.  Fitting perfectly into the role of a middle-aged restaurateur in Les Halles, the erstwhile fresh food marketplace of Paris, Gabin blends strength and weakness as masterfully as always, his mentoring of young medical student Gerard (Gérard Blain) all the more touching given their relationship’s twisted fate. Another astounding performance is Lucienne Bogaert as Gabrielle, a drug-addicted former prostitute who alternates between hysterical and catatonic in her pigsty of a room on the wrong side of the tracks.