The Passion of Slow Fire
1961 film by Édouard Molinaro
The Passion of Slow Fire (French: La Mort de Belle) is a 1961 French crime film directed by Édouard Molinaro and starring Jean Desailly and based on the novel La mort de Belle by Georges Simenon.
Plot
Stéphane Blanchon lives a quiet life in Switzerland with his wife, Christine, until a young American boarder named Belle, who was living with them, is found murdered.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Passion of Slow Fire” is 1961 film by Édouard Molinaro. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Passion, Slow and Fire, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1961 film by Édouard Molinaro” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3210825. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1961.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Passion of Slow Fire”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Passion of Slow Fire primary sources, The Passion of Slow Fire archive and Passion research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Passion of Slow Fire”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Passion of Slow Fire” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.