Les Diaboliques (film)

Les Diaboliques (French pronunciation: [le djabɔlik], The Devils), also known as The Fiends orDiabolique, is a 1955 black and white French suspense film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot and Paul Meurisse. It was based on the novelCelle qui n'était plus (She Who Was No More) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. The story blends elements of thriller and horror, with the plot focusing on a woman and her husband's mistress who conspire to murder the man; after the crime is committed, however, his body disappears, and a number of strange occurrences ensue.

Clouzot, right after finishing Wages of Fear snatched the screenplay rights from master ofsuspense director, Alfred Hitchcock.^{[citation needed]} This movie helped inspire Hitchcock'sPsycho.^{[citation needed]} Robert Bloch himself, the author of novel Psycho, has stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film is Diaboliques.^[1]

Now considered a classic of the horror genre and film in general, Les Diaboliques ranked #49 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Plot

The story takes place in a second-rate boarding school run by the tyrannical and mean Michel Delassalle (Meurisse). The school, though, is owned by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina (Clouzot), and Delassalle flaunts his relationship with Nicole Horner (Signoret), a teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women are shown to have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel, who is physically and emotionally abusive to both.

Unable to stand his mistreatment any longer, Nicole devises a plan. Though hesitant at first, Christina ultimately consents to help Nicole. Using a threatened divorce to lure Michel to Nicole's apartment building in a remote village several hundred kilometers away, Christina sedates him. The two women then drown him in a bathtub and dump his body in the school's neglected swimming pool. When his corpse floats to the surface, they think it will appear to have been an accident. Almost everything goes according to their plans until the body fails to surface, and Michel's corpse is nowhere to be found when the pool is drained.

Nicole sees in the paper that the police found the corpse. Christina goes to the morgue and learns it is not Michel's body. There she meets Alfred Fichet (Vanel), a retired private detective. He gets involved in the case, much to Nicole's chagrin.

When Christina and Alfred come back, a boy is punished for breaking a window; the boy says Michel punished him. After hearing this Christina becomes very sick. She is unable to be photographed for the school photo; however, it seems that Michel is in it, in the back next to a window. Nicole becomes worried and leaves the school.

Christina, overcome by fear, tells Alfred everything. He does not believe her, but he investigates the pool. Christina hears some noises and wanders the school. She concludes that someone is in the school and she runs back to her room. She finds Michel's corpse in the bathtub. Michel rises from the tub, and Christina has a heart attack and dies.

Michel and Nicole have set up Christina from the beginning. Michel is not dead, but acting dead to scare Christina to death. But as soon as Nicole and Michel escape Alfred is there to arrest them.

As the movie ends, the same boy who had earlier broken a window breaks another. When asked how he got his slingshot back, the boy says that Christina gave it back to him. A final title screen tells the audience not to reveal the ending to others.

[edit]Cast

• Simone Signoret as Nicole Horner
• Véra Clouzot as Christina Delassalle
• Paul Meurisse as Michel Delassalle
• Charles Vanel as Alfred Fichet
• Jean Brochard as Plantiveau
• Pierre Larquey as M. Drain
• Michel Serrault as M. Raymond
• Thérèse Dorny as Mme. Herboux
• Noël Roquevert as M. Herboux
• Georges Poujouly as Soudieu

[edit]History

Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot inLes Diaboliques

The film created a sensation upon its original release. It has often been likened to the films of Alfred Hitchcock; some sources say that Alfred Hitchcock missed out on purchasing the rights to the Boileau and Narcejac novel by just a few hours, Clouzot getting to the authors first.^[2] The end credit contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message". The film was a success at the box office, with 3,674,380 admissions in France alone.

The film gained additional press when, only five years after its release, Véra Clouzot died of a heart attack at age 46, somewhat mirroring her character in the film, who also had heart problems.

In Fatal Attraction (1987), the plot device of an apparently drowned victim coming back to life in a bath is reused, in this case of the character Alex Forrest played by Glenn Close, but the film as a whole does not revolve around the incident. An American version, titled Reflections of Murder, was made by ABC-TV in 1974 with Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, and Sam Waterston. In 1996, the film was remade as Diabolique, and starred Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani in the leading female roles. Also, Michel's and Nicole's plan to rid of Christina to get the ownership of a property is somewhat similar to the plot of the 1982 movie Deathtrap.

While Les Diaboliques was often shown on Turner Classic Movies channel, it had limited availability for home entertainment purchase. The film was released on DVD in the exclusive Criterion Collection in January 1999, marking the film's first major home video release. It was subsequently released on DVD in various other countries.

[edit]Reception

In 2007, Time placed Les Diaboliques on their list of Top 25 Horror films.^[3] The film holds a 96% approval rate based on 23 reviews on theRotten Tomatoes web site.^[4] In 1954 Les Diaboliques won the Louis Delluc Prize and the award for best foreign film at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards in 1955

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