Robert Siodmak’s earliest feature to qualify as noir is undoubtedly 1938’s Mollenard (US: Hatred), a strange film about one man’s rebellion against the normal order of life. Starring Harry Baur as the title character, the captain of a merchant ship deployed to the Far East which he’s using illegally to smuggle and sell arms, the film’s first half covers Mollenard’s gun runner adventures in Shanghai where he’s universally liked and admired by his crew and the locals who congregate wherever he goes; when gangster rival Bonnerot (Pierre Renoir) and his thugs destroy the captain’s ship with explosives and subsequent fire, Mollenard’s employer calls him home to Dunkirk where his insufferable wife (Gabrielle Dorziat) and adult children have grown accustomed to his absence. Baur brilliantly portrays Mollenard’s transformation from a larger-than-life sailing celebrity to a miserable, dependent, suicidal husband who becomes ill and declines rapidly with nothing much to live for. Siodmak’s expressionistic style, which would develop so fully in Hollywood, is on display in key scenes, shadows and light battling to highlight misty exteriors — like the muddy ruins where machine gun fire is exchanged — and ornate interiors — like the Art Deco nightclub with its long runway and stage — replete with bulbous chandeliers, mirrors, lamps, and sconces. The film toys with a few different tones, including moments of black comedy, but they converge effectively for a moving and bittersweet conclusion.