With one of the most perfectly noir opening sequences of the cycle, Henri Decoin’s L’homme de Londres (US: The Man from London) immediately immerses us in the dockside gloom and suffocating fog of a small French port, the plaintive, mesmerizing voice of a lonely street walker singing a la Edith Piaf for anyone who will listen. Released in 1943 during Decoin’s peak early years, the film provides an oppressive atmosphere, perhaps its soupy shadows and fog hiding the reality of French society under Nazi occupation, the occasionally chanted scripture intended to leaven the doom like a choir. Story-wise, night watchman Maloin (Fernand Ledoux) spies two men fighting on the dock he monitors; one shoots the other and runs away, the victim falling backward into the water and disappearing, the only clue that he ever existed a suitcase stuffed with cash, which Maloin retrieves and keeps for himself. While pleased to have inherited a small fortune to provide his family with a better life, Maloin’s guilt and anxiety soon consume him, especially when the police launch an investigation and the victim’s associates come looking for the loot. Also starring Jules Berry and Suzy Prim, Decoin’s film dives deep into the darkness of the human psyche, and what it turns up isn’t pretty.