Exalted by Ado Kyrou as one of the purest renditions of amour fou in the cinema, the rarely seen Manon is a dark surrealist fever dream and among the greatest discoveries within Clouzot's oeuvre. Crowned by a kinetic scene of a cathedral torn apart by bombs, Manon is fascinating for its evocation of the destruction and aftermath of World War 2 and its vision of a traumatized and morally compromised postwar France. A boyish Serge Reggiani falls willing and masochistic victim to the double-edged charms of Manon, transformed by Cécile Aubry into the ultimate femme fatale, at turns a petulant angel, and others a cruel, avaricious succubus – yet bringing an awkward, childlike grace to her every act of treachery.

This recently rediscovered early comic short, the surprise twist story of a maladroit burglar, bears the strong imprint of the Weimar Expressionist cinema that was so important to Clouzot in his early years while also revealing the kind of satiric archetypal caricature that would recur throughout his later films.