LES DIABOLIQUES
France, 1955, 114 minutes, Black and white.
Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Michel Serrault.
Directed by Henri Georges Clouzot.
Les Diaboliques is considered a classic film of suspense. It is based on the novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock was interested in the novel and making a film of it but was beaten by Clouzout to the rights. However, Hitchcock obtained the rights to the next novel by the writers, Vertigo, which became Hitchcock’s classic, considered by many people to be his best film.
The setting is a French school in the provinces. Vera Clouzot portrays the owner of the school, married to the headmaster, played by Paul Meurisse. Meurisse has had an affair with another teacher, played by Simone Signoret.
The film recreates the atmosphere of the enclosed school of the period as well as aspects of French society at the time. However, the focus of the film is on the conspiracy between the wife and the mistress to kill the headmaster. He is presented as arrogant and dominating. In the scheme, the two women lure him to a provincial house, murder him in the bath, dispose of his body in a trunk and leave it in the swimming pool of the school. However, after some suspense, the pool is drained and the body is not there.
The film is a psychological study, a picture of relationships soured. There is a twist at the end, especially a horror scene as the husband seems to come alive in the bath and the wife has a heart attack.
The film, like many of Clouzot’s films, is a sardonic look at French society and moral behaviour. One of his earliest films was Le Corbeau, banned by the Nazis and the Free French, a look at gossip and scandal in a provincial town. Prior to Les Diaboliques, he made the classic The Wages of Fear. He also tried to make a film, Enfer, in the 1960s, with Romy Schneider. However, there were many difficulties, Clouzot becoming obsessed, taking many shots, retakes, his actor Serge Reggiani becoming ill and leaving the project. It was never completed. Later, his widow sold the rights to documentary film-makers who, in 2009, made Henri Georges Clouzot’s Inferno, incorporating the shots which were taken as well as telling the story of the making of the film and its difficulties.
There was an American version of Les Diaboliques with Sharon Stone and Isabel Adjani – which all critics and commentators have warned audiences against, urging them to see only the original.
1. The classic status of the film, suspense, black and white photography, French settings?
2. The 1950s style of film-making, the photography, editing? The score? The cast?
3. The title, the overtones of the diabolical in terms of murderous intentions and behaviour?
4. The plausibility of the plot and characters, the situation at the school, the relationships, the murder plan, its accomplishment? The twists?
5. The setting of the school, the period, the students, the staff, management, the ownership, Christine and the property, Michel and his work?
6. The visuals of the school, classes, meals, the yard, travelling plans, the holidays? The realism?
7. Christine and Nicole? Christine marrying Michel, his managing the school? Michel and Nicole? Christine’s health, her psychological disposition, her weal will? The influence of Nicole? The school carrying on despite the difficulties and the situation, her being humiliated in public?
8. Michel as a character, his personality, his marrying Christine, disliking her, the clashes with Nicole? The brutality of his treatment, his arrogance, the episode of swallowing the fish in the refectory? The students looking? His giving permissions, his anger? His decision to visit the two women?
9. Nicole, a strong and determined character, her relationship with Michel, the set-up? Friendship with Christine, their working together, her urging to action, her participation in the plan? A female Iago character?
10. The plan, the discussions, leaving for the holidays, travelling away, passing through the countryside, Nicole’s house, the tenants and their being witnesses, the phone call to Michel, Nicole with the script written? Luring Michel to the house, his arrival? Christine and her nervousness? Their having brought the trunk? The bath, the tenants complaining about the water, Michel and drinking, the poison, drowning him, hitting him over the head? Wrapping up the body, in the trunk, carrying it out to the vehicle, driving back to the school, disposing of the body in the pool?
11. Nicole’s neighbours, their comments, the rent, the bath, complaints, the touch of realism? The comic touch which made the suspense stronger?
12. Christine and her growing anxiety, the boy and his stating that he had seen Michel? The police?
13. At the school, everything normal, the pool, the reasons for draining it, taking time, the empty pool, the boy and his witness?
14. The police commissioner, Michel as missing, the discussions, with the staff, Christine and her confessing?
15. Christine, in the room, Michel in the bath, his appearance, his eyes, her collapse, heart attack and death?
16. Nicole and Michel, their plan, malice, diabolical? A future or not?
17. A film dramatising the perfect murder?
