The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov December 12, 2025

Edouard Molinaro's "The Passion of Slow Fire" (1961) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The only bonus feature on the release is an exclusive new audio commentary by writer and filmmaker Max Allan Collins and critic and podcaster Heath Holland. In French, with optional English subtitles. Region-A "locked".

Listen to your father. She's ugly.

The great Belgian writer Georges Simenon penned several hundred novels and many short stories, most displaying his real name, and some under various aliases. His legendary character, Detective Jules Maigret, is featured in over seventy novels, as well as multiple films considered classics on the other side of the Atlantic. Simenon routinely described complex crimes and unorthodox killers, but many of his novels and short stories are detailed, brilliant studies of the human psyche.

In Edouard Molinaro’s The Passion of Slow Fire, which is based on one of Simenon’s many novels, there is a crime and an elusive killer, but Maigret is nowhere to be seen. (There is a good reason for this). The crime is committed in a big, beautiful, secluded house just outside Geneva, which Stephane Blanchone (Jean Desailly), a respected professor at the local International College, and his wife, Christine (Monique Melinand), call home. The crime is the murder of Belle Shermann (Alexandra Stewart), an American student of Russian extraction, who has been living with the Blanchones for several months, but managed to remain fairly independent. On a night when the professor is alone in the house, and his wife is in Geneva playing cards with mutual friends, Shermann returns late from an improvised date, and soon after, someone strangles her in her room. On the following morning, after her cold body is discovered, the professor becomes the main suspect in what seemingly everyone in Geneva believes is a pretty straightforward case.

However, it does not take long before a veteran detective, the police superintendent, and a prominent psychologist conclude that it is impossible to declare that the professor is the killer. For various reasons -- all of which are completely disregarded by his neighbors, colleagues at the college, and even his wife’s suspicious sister. Someone paints ‘killer’ on the Blanchones’ house, while at the college, the dean, who has been signing the professor’s check for years, politely asks him to take a long, possibly permanent vacation. Then, while the professor’s once idyllic world continues to erode, a secret letter in which Shermann confesses that, despite their age difference, she is madly in love with him, and none of the younger men she has dated mean anything to her, seals his fate.

The entire second half is a terrific summation of the mechanics of the brutal public character assassination that has been replayed so many times in recent years. It is a vicious cycle of demoralizing hits, each stronger than the one preceding it, each supercharged by the loudest public voices. The only notable difference in the professor’s case is in the delivery of the hits. They cannot travel as quickly as modern media makes possible and, for a while, remain restricted to the professor’s area. Also, the professor’s case is wrapped up with a coda, which is entirely predictable.

Molinaro’s direction mimics Simenon’s writing style. It feels very casual, often even oddly relaxed, but it is unmistakably intelligent, carefully identifying and moving different pieces to create a disturbing cinematic report on an ugly practice that is more popular than ever before.

*Kino Lorber's release introduces a recent 4K restoration of The Passion of Slow Burning, prepared at L'Immagine Ritrovata on behalf of StudioCanal.

The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Passion of Slow Fire arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The release introduces a recent 4K restoration of The Passion of Slow Burning prepared at L'Immagine Ritrovata on behalf of StudioCanal. The 4K restoration produces many, predictably clean, wonderfully detailed, and stable visuals, so it is easy to declare that the film has never looked as good as it does now. However, the 4K restoration has a predictable weakness. In many darker areas, the gamma levels are not managed properly and, as a result, some native detail is not fully exposed. At times, it almost looks as if filtering corrections are applied. This is an old and, unfortunately, very common issue on 4K restorations of black-and-white films that are completed at L'Immagine Ritrovata. (You can see examples of this recurring issue on the 4K restorations of Rocco and His Brothers and Black Sunday). I did not encounter any traces of problematic detraining corrections. The surface of the visuals is immaculate as well. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: French DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English subtitles are provided for the main feature.

The audio is fully restored and very healthy. Oscar-winning Georges Delerue's score frequently creates surprisingly lovely contrasts that become very important as the professor's world begins to crumble. The dialogue is very clear, sharp, stable, and easy to follow. I did not encounter any encoding anomalies to report in our review. The English translation is excellent. However, the English subtitles are a bit too small.

The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by writer and filmmaker Max Allan Collins and critic and podcaster Heath Holland.

The Passion of Slow Fire Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Character assassinations, whether carefully staged or improvised, are equally brutal, and even if a target is lucky to survive one, the scars they cause never disappear. Also, some of them feature an entirely predictable coda, like the one that wraps up the professor's case. So, why are character assassinations more popular than ever before? They are effective and have always been appreciated by the loudest segment of the population. Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release brings an imperfect but still quite good 4K restoration of The Passion of Slow Fire, completed on behalf of StudioCanal. It is included in French Noir Collection II, a two-disc Blu-ray set. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.