Le loup des Malveneur

In this curio from France, we find a young woman, Madeline Sologne ("The Eternal Return" (1943)), taking a position as governess to a small girl at a mysterious chateau (à la "Jane Eyre"). The chateau belongs to the Malveneur family; a family whose reputed to be cursed by a wolf (à la the canine in "The Hound of the Baskervilles"). Pierre Renoir plays Reginald de Malveneur -- the last of the Malveneurs. He disappears one night and, thereafter, strange music is heard coming from the locked cellar.

Sologne and handsome French actor Michel Marsay try to solve the mystery. Marsay's Latin good looks are a welcome change from the gloom at the old, menacing chateau. He should have became a major star in France. My print from Sinister Cinema runs 79 minutes. It seems intact. A film worth seeking out, possibly, as an agreeable appetizer to a marvelous entrée, Jean Cocteau's beautiful and frightning "Beauty and the Beast" (1946). If you want a haunting French film double feature night, here are two films that should satisfyingly fit the bill.