A murder mystery in an old mansion in Germany’s Black Forest directed by one of the greats of French film noir? That’s what’s on offer in Julien Duvivier’s La chambre ardente (US: The Burning Court), a fascinating mixture of noir, whodunit, and gothic horror in which the prospective heirs of dying septuagenarian Mathias Desgrez (Frédéric Duvallès) gather at his opulent château to secure their shares of the inheritance. Shot at Castle Hohenbuchau, which sadly was demolished the year after this film’s release, The Burning Court stars Jean-Claude Brialy and Stephane Desgrez as brothers who come looking for their inheritance the same weekend the man croaks; one brother’s compelled to navigate between the wife (Perrette Pradier) who accompanied him and his mistress who serves as the dying man’s live-in nurse (Nadja Tiller). Also staying at the manse is historian Michel Boissard (Walter Giller) and his wife Marie (Édith Scob), a descendant of a rival family who may be interested in revenge. Mysterious ghost-like figures, gas lamps in the fog, dogs howling in the distance, corpses disappearing from the mausoleum: all these elements add a Gothic sheen, along with Scob’s unmistakable face, by this time iconic from her performance in Georges Franju’s extra creepy Eyes Without a Face (1960). The film reminds us of the unfathomable security enjoyed by members of the modern aristocracy in their baroque mansions with marble columns and crystal chandeliers, such that the only threat to their world must be supernatural, in the form of a family curse.