Diabolique

I finally caught up with the film Henri-Georges Clouzot made between Wages of Fear and The Mystery of Picasso, two films of particular interest to me, and I was surprised that I had no recollection whatsoever of the film, though the title was so familiar. Just as well, so the suspense was undiluted, even though I did anticipate the final twist, probably because it has been imitated since. Hitchcock is the inevitable point of comparison here, starting from this film’s adaptation of a novel by a pair of French authors who then penned the source of Vertigo. Clouzot is similar not just as a master of cinematic suspense, but as a cold eye with a taste for kinky sexual subtexts, which are ultimately autobiographical. While Hitchcock plays out his murderous erotic fantasies with bland, blond beauties, Clouzot goes one better by casting his dark, fragile wife Vera as the victim of his tale. So presumably he himself is much like the sadistic headmaster in the film, driving all around him to have murderous thoughts, till his desperate wife and icy mistress (Simone Signoret) conspire to remove him from their lives. If you don’t know what happens next, then I won’t spoil it for you, though the twisted view of human nature might qualify your enjoyment of the twists of the story. (1955, TCM/T, n.) *7*