Alternate Best Actor 1946: Michel Simon in Panique

Michel Simon did not receive an Oscar nomination for portraying Monsieur Hire in Panique.

Panique follows an eccentric outsider as he gets slowly set up to take the fall of a murder by the murderer and his accomplice girlfriend. 

Simon honestly doesn’t play a role too far removed from his work with Jean Renoir in La Chienne. Where both films are essentially setups for one man to be treated cruelly by a couple with the woman acting as a black widow to ensnare the unsuspecting man. A key word in both instances however is unsuspecting, not innocent. We first really see Hire from a bit of a distance as a potentially suspicious man as the film opens with the murder of a woman and the whole town wondering who might be the culprit. We see Hire lurking about and Simon in a way creates the potential doubt where the man is knowingly looking on in these moments and it seems like he knows something. Well he does know something as a new woman comes into town, Alice (Viviane Romance), who has already helped the actual murderer, Alfred (Paul Bernard), cover up a different murder before even coming to see him as a false stranger so they can be together while avoiding police suspicion. Simon plays directly a creep figure as he leers at Alice from his window then even approaches her the following day, in no way trying to soften those elements. Although one can argue a noble effort that Hire wants to warn her about Alfred, because he knows for sure that Alfred is the killer, since Hire knows it becomes a strange game he is also playing given he could easily turn over his evidence to the police at any time that he claims to have. Simon though is effective and convincing in presenting the strangeness in a very tangible way where you never doubt that Hire would proceed in this way as the man just has his own way about life and interacting with others. 

The film then progresses as Alice is instructed to ingratiate herself with Hire to eventually plant evidence of the murder, meanwhile Alfred spreads rumors around about the already disliked Hire to try to get the town to turn on him. In their interactions Simon manages an artful combination between some genuine pathos as he describes with this accepted manner his own life as an outsider in all places, while holding this cheery disposition when speaking of his own wife who died. In those moments Simon is quietly moving, although at the same time he does bring a certain overbearing quality in moments that again emphasize that eccentricity in ways that are less endearing. While we know Alice is manipulative, and the real reason why she’s there, Simon very much presents a certain obliviousness even with some bits of creepiness as the man is just fascinated by this woman who is bothering to give him the time of day. I haven’t said it in awhile but this film is a bit of a director’s film where the overall vision is most pronounced and to a certain point the characters are more so puzzle pieces in that tapestry more than fully coming to life beyond it. At a certain point Hire is given less time, particularly in the lead up to the climax, although he returns for the climax where Simon certainly is moving and makes his whole scene of becoming a pariah hard to watch. Simon emphasizing just the confusion of the moment that turns to fear and just the final sorrow in his eyes is heartbreaking. There is however a certain limitation by the nature of the script however and by comparison the similar role in La Chienne had more he could sink his teeth into, no pun intended. It’s a good performance as Simon creates the tragedy both in terms of showing why people might not trust Hire, why Hire might conceal his knowledge of the murder, but also how he still is a victim regardless.