Les Diaboliques (1955) (Re-release)
Just time to let you know my thoughts on one of the finest horror-thrillers in history before its UK re-release – as I have previously opined, Francophone cinema and horror rarely mix but, when they do, the results are extraordinary. Think Les yeux sans visage (1960) by Georges Franju, Calvaire (2004) by Fabrice du Welz and this, the sublime Les Diaboliques (1955) by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
Proving my point, French director Clouzot, who also made the marvellous La salaire de la peur (The wages of fear) (1953), never touched the genre again, but anyone who has sweated this one out (seriously, it is best watched alone, and in the dark) can be grateful for his foray into fear.
Interestingly, the film is based on Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s novel Celle qui n’était plus (She who was no more), for which Alfred Hitchcock himself also tried to purchase the rights – Clouzot apparently beat him by only a few hours. By way of a kiss-and-make-up, however, Boileau and Narcejac subsequently wrote D’Entre les Morts (From among the dead) especially for Hitchcock, who filmed it as Vertigo (1958).
Still of Véra Clouzot and Simone Signoret in Diabolique
And, in structure, timing and pay-off, the film is pure Hitchcock. However, with the possible exceptions of Psycho (1960) and The Birds (1963), the Master never got this scary…
The sadistic and cruel (and I mean really cruel) Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse), headmaster of a struggling boy’s school on the outskirts of Paris, may well have humiliated his long-suffering wife Christina (Véra Clouzot), a fragile young woman with a weak heart who owns the school, and mistress Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret) for the last time – upon the suggestion of Horner, the pair decide to get him out of their lives for good, with more than a little poison in his favourite tipple, a bottle of Johnny Walker whisky, and a handily filled bath-tub. The murder seemingly succeeds without a hitch, and the ladies dump their tormentor’s body in the school’s overgrown swimming pool. However, when it is subsequently drained, Delasalle’s body is nowhere to be found – then things start getting really creepy…
Years ahead of its time in terms of its suggestion, sadism and sexuality, Clouzot’s film sneaks up on you like a persistent shiver on your neck that you just can’t shift, playing diabolical games with viewers’ expectations, and in essence putting you through the same nightmare that the women are suffering. Seriously, there are touches here that will stand in perpetuity with the very best of horror, such as the headmaster appearing in a school photo after his death, and the performances of Signoret, Clouzot (who was the director’s wife) and particularly Meurisse combine to create what is, perhaps, simply the finest suspense shocker ever made, one that even Hitchcock could not have bettered.
I give you my word – you will be scared. Oh, and the 1996 remake, Diabolique, by Jeremiah S. Chechik, starring Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani and Chazz Palminteri, is not even worth mentioning, so I won’t.
116 mins. In French, but *don’t* let that put you off, OK?
James Drew
Please check local listings before travelling. For more reviews, check out www.picturenose.com.
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Picturenose's James Drew rejoices at the return of a horror-suspense classic to the big screen.
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