Les diaboliques

Are you alone? good. Have you turned off the lights? good.Is there a storm brewing in that dark foreboding sky?Excellent. Do you like brilliant black and white movies? Wonderful.Now, sit back and enjoy the best of the best. This is quite simply the best psychological thriller ever made.Often imitated but never bettered. If you have a problem with subtitled films then don't worry because you will understand this film without reading them. If you want slash and gore, go elsewhere.If you want sophisticated entertainment,you've come to the right place.Georges Cluzot's finest work is a thing of beauty as is his wife Vera, who stars opposite Simone Signoret as the schoolmaster's wife.From the very start it is very clear that all is not as it seems. But why? and who? What is the terrible secret of the swimming pool and later on, the bathtub? As the tension builds to an unbearable climax, we sit and hide behind our hands, peering through the gaps in our fingers.Oh my God!! it can't be!.....it is! Do not confuse this movie with the disgraceful remake starring Sharon Stone. All copies of that disaster should be burned. Watch this movie if you are a serious film buff. Rent something else if you have the attention span of a goldfish.Brilliant. 10/10

Set in a French boarding school for boys, "Les Diaboliques" tells the story of two teachers, Christina (played by Vera Clouzot), and Nicole (played by Simone Signoret), who conspire to kill the sadistic headmaster, a man who also happens to be Christina's abusive husband.

Like most murder mysteries, the story is highly improbable; nevertheless, the film is still hugely entertaining, thanks in part to plot twists and turns that even Agatha Christie would admire, and to the film's B&W lighting, that renders a noirish, sinister atmosphere.

The first half is interesting and tightly plotted. But the real strength of the film's underlying premise begins at the mid-point plot turn. The second half is riveting, because the tight plot begins to ooze with mystery and suspense. It builds to a final ten minutes that are as frightening as almost any ending in film history; dark interiors, shadows, ominous light at the end of a long hallway, a general absence of sound, a gloved hand, a scream, and an unexpected image. It's the very definition of spine-tingling suspense.

There is a clue to help solve the story's mystery in the film's first ten minutes; but like any good mystery, that clue is very subtle. All the film's acting is excellent, even down to the children actors. And, Simone Signoret is as wonderful here as she is in all of her other movies.

English subtitles require a little more work for viewers who cannot understand the French dialogue; yet, the story, the acting, and the cinematography should more than offset this minor irritation. Background music occurs only during the film's title sequence and closing credits; this general absence of music thus enhances suspense.

Although not strictly speaking a whodunit, "Les Diaboliques" is a classic murder mystery that has earned a well-deserved reputation for setting the standard for cinematic suspense. The story is riveting, and the film is technically well made. More recent films have tried to copy it; but this is the original.

The wife and the mistress of a headmaster pool their resources to scotch his wicked antics, pull the plug on his mathematics, but the corpse does a runner and tensions arise, as events unfold with increasing surprise, a basket case, a zombie face, a cracking French facade, what a spectacularly original and engrossing film to devise!

The odds against writing and directing two all-time classic thrillers/suspensers back to back must be fairly remote, featuring your wife in both remoter still, and starring Yves Montand in the first (The Wages Of Fear, in case there are any first-time buyers out there) and his wife, Simone Signoret in the second, astronomical. Say hello - and tip your hat while you're about it - to Henri-George Clouzot who pulled off this double whammy with ease. Clouzot made only a handful of films but those he did make were worth seeing, from Le Corbeau thru L'Assassin habite du 21 thru Quai des Orfevres and up to Wages and this one. Again many previous commenters have set the scene and described the plot and most of them are more than positive in their praise. I can only endorse their opinions and raise a glass to all involved especially Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel who tend to get lost in the shuffle. 9/10

Les diaboliques is an unusually intense movie. I believe this is due to the well thought out choice of real locations and the masterful use of spatial entities and textures. Your memory really gets hooked on those things, and it gives the story a sense of reality that makes you feel uneasy.

Les diaboliques is as much a horror movie as it is a thriller. When I watch this I perceive an intense mouldy smell throughout. The crumbling boarding school where the main characters live and act is worse than any nightmare – even the swimming pool filled with murky water appears like a menacing abyss. The stifling crummyness is accentuated by the plot: School teachers sit at the sadistic principal's table in the refectory and have to force unspeakably ghastly meals down their throats (only one glass of wine is allowed). The second location is the principal's lover's apartment in a dead borough somewhere in no man's land. It's stuffy and utterly claustrophobic. The transfer between the two places is made with a "deux chevaux" station wagon – its characteristic back part of corrugated sheet metal once was a common feature in our parts of the world, as was the snarling sound of the deux chevaux‘s engine. In the corrugated iron "box" sits a creaky wicker crate, which on the way back from the lover's apartment contains evidence of the crime, wrapped in a checkered wax tablecloth. So you see shells within shells, not unlike one of those Russian wooden dolls. You don't know what you will find in the innermost until the end.