Gérard Philipe evokes a remarkable tension between suspicion and sympathy as a melancholy young man returning to the pretty little beach of his childhood, the beach (and the childhood) now enshrouded in rain and mist. The story of his past unfolds in the present time: beautifully and without the use of flashbacks, monologue or explanation, his reasons for returning are revealed to the residents and guests of an isolated inn.
Yves Allegret's films of the late Forties are among the best film noir made anywhere: highly atmospheric, they recall the mood of “poetic fatalism” which permeated the great films of Prevert-Carne in the late 1930s; but the Allegret noir avoids all arty flourishes and eccentricities in building tension and in pitilessly revealing the dark side of human behavior.