Just as the devil once marked his accomplices with an indelible sign, Clouzot places his signature on everything that enters into composition of the work: he made himself famous for the art of «taming» the actors. And his touch can already be found in the script. Quai de Orfèvres was inspired by Légitime Défense, a novel he read during the war which was, however, impossible to find in Paris when he decided to do the adaptation. While waiting for Steeman to find a copy for him in Belgium, he began working based on his own memories. When the book finally arrived, it turned out to be very different from Clouzot’s memories of it… and from the adaptation he had already done. From this misadventure, Steeman drew a conclusion in which humor just barely softens the bitterness: «You know the result: a Clouzot récital, perhaps the best film ever by that devil of a man, that beast of the cinema who’ll never be able to make an adaptation, and who can build only after he’s demolished, out of a most elementary contempt for verisimilitude and a taste for effect…»

Francis Lacassin, in «l’Avant-Scène du Cinéma», n. 29, 15/9/1963