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As first seen at work, Vidocq is just an unusually smooth garter-snatcher (his quarry: Carole Landis). But as he matures, he does a dowager (Alma Kruger) out of every jewel she has, without diminishing her regard for him. He also inspires high regard in her lovely granddaughter (Signe Hasso), and decides that as a detective, recovering the lost jewels by brilliant deduction, he can make his way in the world even better.
Love (Miss Hasso), his past (Miss Landis) and even a glimmering of conscience eventually intervene. The silky criminal's sidekick (Akim Tamiroff), a Sancho Panza type who prefers the homelier crimes like murder, opposes the renegade and suffers the consequences. The picture tactfully ends as M. Vidocq settles down to full-time virtue.
Produced and directed respectively by European Veterans Arnold Pressburger and Douglas Sirk, this suave, tinkling entertainment has a marked continental accent. It is evident in the Casanovian irony with which such matters as adultery and infatuation, both virginal and senile, are handled; in George Sanders' chilled-okra delivery of his classically flippant lines; in Hanns Eisler's unconventional score; and in the constant indication that the sets and costumes and lighting were controlled by people interested in applying their knowledge of the fine arts to the screen.
Though plain cinemaddicts may find this polished continentalism a little arch and precious, it will pay off even for all in two trick climaxes: a fight-to-the-death on a be-tinseled carrousel, and a scene in which a jealous husband (Gene Lockhart) tragicomically goes bats while, strapped to his back, scores of caged birds strike up a frenzy of alarmed song.