Les Diaboliques (film)

This article is about the 1955 film. For the 1996 version, see Diabolique (1996 film).

Les Diaboliques
theatrical release poster
Directed by	Henri-Georges Clouzot
Produced by	Henri-Georges Clouzot
Screenplay by	Henri-Georges Clouzot Jérôme Géronimi
Based on	Celle qui n'était plus by Boileau-Narcejac
Starring	Simone Signoret Véra Clouzot Paul Meurisse Charles Vanel
Music by	Georges Van Parys
Cinematography	Armand Thirard
Edited by	Madeleine Gug
Distributed by	Cinédis (France) UMPO (US) Gala Film Dists. (UK) Criterion (US DVD, 1999) Arrow Films (UK DVD, 2007)
Release dates	29 January 1955 (1955-01-29) (France)
Running time	114 minutes 107 minutes (US, 1955)
Country	France
Language	French

Les Diaboliques (French pronunciation: ​[lɛ djaboˈlik]), released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends, is a 1955 French black-and-white psychological thriller feature film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. It is based on the novel Celle 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. The film was the 10th highest grossing film of the year with a total of 3,674,380 admissions in France.

Clouzot, right after finishing Wages of Fear, snatched the screenplay rights from Alfred Hitchcock. This movie helped inspire Hitchcock's Psycho. Robert Bloch himself, the author of the novel Psycho, has stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film is Diabolique.

Now considered a classic of the horror genre and film in general, the scene in which Christina's husband emerges from the bathtub ranked #49 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Plot

A second-rate boarding school is 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.

Some time later, 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.

Cast

File:Les Diaboliques-1 rgb.png

Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot in Les Diaboliques

• 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
• Aminda Montserrat : Mme. Plantiveau
• Madeleine Suffel : la dégraisseuse
• Jean Témerson : le garçon d'hôtel
• Jacques Hilling : l'employé de l'institut médico-légal
• Robert Dalban : le pompiste

Critical reception

In 2007, Time placed Les Diaboliques on their list of Top 25 Horror films. The film holds a 97% approval rate based on 36 reviews on the Rotten Tomatoes web site. 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.

Legacy and remakes

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. 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.

The 1967 film Games, written by Gene R. Kearney and directed by Curtis Harrington, and starring James Caan and Katharine Ross, has a different basic situation, but similar twists at the end, and again features Simone Signoret as the corrupt woman of mystery.

An American version of Les Diaboliques, titled Reflections of Murder, was made by ABC-TV in 1974 with Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, and Sam Waterston. In 1993, another made-for-television movie remake was made; this one was titled House of Secrets, and it starred Melissa Gilbert. In 1996, the film was remade again as Diabolique, adapted by Don Roos, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik, and starring Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani in the leading female roles, with Chazz Palminteri as the husband and Kathy Bates as the detective.

While Les Diaboliques was often shown on Turner Classic Movies channel, it had limited availability for home entertainment purchase.

Home media

The film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in July 1999 and was then re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in May 2011. The latter release features selected-scene commentary by French-film scholar Kelley Conway, a new video introduction by Serge Bromberg, and a new video interview with novelist and film critic Kim Newman.

References

Notes

External links

• Les Diaboliques at IMDb
• Les Diaboliques at AllMovie
• Les Diaboliques at Rotten Tomatoes
• Les Diaboliques at the TCM Movie Database
• Les Diaboliques essay by Terrence Rafferty at The Criterion Collection
• Les Diaboliques essay by Danny Peary at The Criterion Collection