Les Diaboliques (Diabolique)
1955
****
Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Cast: Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Noël Roquevert, Thérèse Dorny, Pierre Larquey, Michel Serrault, Georges Poujouly, Georges Chamarat, Jacques Varennes
Christina, the wife, and Nicole, the lover of a cruel boarding-school headmaster, decide to murder him together. After drugging and drowning him, things take an unexpected turn. Henri-Georges Clouzot's psychological thriller, based on the 1952 novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, is a fiendishly clever Hitchcockian murder mystery that has inspired several remakes, most recently Jeremiah Chechik's version in 1996. The only part of the story that feels dated is the idea that the murder victim must be so evil that he deserves to be killed. However, the terrific final 20 minutes more than make up for it.
