The Burning Crucible

A wife dreams of a detective in a dozen disguises, and her jealous husband hires the same man, so the courtship is conducted by surveillance. Ivan Mosjoukine directs himself in the Russian émigré studio at full strangeness: a nightmare prologue, an agency that finds anything, and Nathalie Lissenko as the wife. Renoir said this film made him want to make movies. Albatros, Paris, 1923, ninety-seven minutes.