Based on a novel by Georges Simenon, Louis Daquin’s Le voyageur de la Toussaint shares a romantic, small-town atmosphere with two other French noirs produced under Nazi occupation: Christian-Jacque’s Who Killed Santa Claus? (1941) and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le corbeau (1943). The deceit and betrayal that thrived in these fictional, remote towns are unquestionably intended to represent the impacts of totalitarianism on the human psyche, and even human nature, perhaps most notably in Le voyageur de la Toussaint, in which the town’s most upstanding residents are exposed as having established a powerful regime of their own, a crime syndicate grounded in blackmail. Jean Desailly plays Gilles Mauvoisin, the son of music hall entertainers who returns to his hometown of La Rochelle to discover that his wealthy uncle has died and left Jean his entire fortune. He soon learns that his uncle had been leading a life of intrigue, having possessed compromising documents that would destroy many reputations in town, and was very possibly poisoned. The dead man’s social circle was a den of wolves, including the rapacious Gérardine Éloi (Gabrielle Dorziat) and her shady son Bob (Serge Reggiani in his first major film role), unctuous notary Maître Hervineau (Louis Seigner), newspaper publisher Pénoux-Rataud (Roger Karl), and business owner Babin (Guillaume de Sax), who untangles himself from the syndicate in order to help Jean uncover the truth. Assia Noris plays Colette Mauvoisin, the uncle’s younger widow who enters a relationship with Jean despite her status as primary suspect in more than one murder. At times as much a tone poem as a crime film, Daquin had access to the skills and resources to create a thrillingly claustrophobic atmosphere, from the thick fog bathing the waterfront to the Dutch angles tilting Main Street storefronts to the shimmering glow of fireplaces while a piano is played softly in the next room.