31 Days of Halloween, Day 20- Diabolique (1955)
Directed By: Henri Georges-Clouzot
Top 8 Cast: Véra Clouzot, Simone Signoret, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Noël Roquevert, Pierre Larquey, Jean Brochard, Jean Lefebure
Plot: Michelle Delassalle is an epically bad man: a murderous, rapist; domestic abuser; the tyrannical principal of a boy’s boarding school (a real presidential type). When his wife and mistress band forces to decide he’s gotta go it’s into the drowning tub for M. Delassalle! But will these dames get away with the cold-blooded killing? And, more troubling even, where’s the body?
Quick Thoughts: I’m way behind on this movie blog so suffice to say that Diabolique is real good. After the more niche taste of Day 19’s YellowBrickRoad it was nice to get a total crowd-pleaser. This flick’s got verve and style in spades! On the border between film noir and full-on horror it goes hard in the last act with a sequence of unrelenting nightmare and elegant dread. It looks great, the acting’s great, the film rachets up the suspense both slowly and sometimes all-at-once in a manner that Hitchcock would go on to emulate. In fact, rumor has it that Hitch just lost the bidding war for the rights to the book the film was based on (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac’s Celle qui n'était plus) to Clouzot. What’s best, the characters are all fully realized with embedded lived histories, and complex motivations. It all plays out on the silver screen and while 1950’s paced (some breathing room in these old pictures!) it is never dull and far more riveting than a lot of our quick-cut contemporary cinema. In fact, it’s a roller coaster ride in the grand tradition of spook-train cinema (I’m thinking of other formalist, strap-in-and-whirl pictures like Get Out and Evil Dead 2)
A fun side-effect of watching so many H’ween jams in such rapid succession is feeling the surprise resonances of many disparate pictures. There’s the faintest whiff of a queer subtext in Diabolique that I’d like to think I would have spotted no matter what but after Day 18’s in-yer-face Vampyros Lesbos I was primed to connect the homosocial with the homosexual and the undercurrent of desire within Diabolique’s central bond of female criminals.
As a side-note, Laura and I watched the great misery-melodrama They Were Five (La Belle Équipe from 1936) earlier this year and it was wonderful to see movie star Charles Vanel pop up again.
I’ve been playing pretty fast and loose with spoilers on this site but this one is best gone into as blindly as possible. I may have already said too much.
Second Opinions:
“…one of the dandiest mystery dramas that has shown here…a pip of a murder thriller, ghost story and character play rolled into one…the writing and the visual construction are superb, and the performance by top-notch French actors on the highest level of sureness and finesse.” Bosley Crowther, The New York Times
“While Clouzot rivaled with Hitchcock for critical and commercial success, he in fact anticipated the tactics of the better-known English director. Famously acknowledged as a model for PSYCHO (1960), LES DIABOLIQUES may act as Clouzot's greatest influence upon Hitchcock, including its morbid humor, plot elements, and suspense devices. Instead of a French Hitchcock, why not an English Clouzot?” Candace Wirt, Cine-file
“If somebody insists, against all warnings, on telling you how Diabolique comes out, kill him in cold blood. There isn't a jury in the land that would convict you.” - Harold V. Cohen, Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Scores:
Autumn Vibes: 3/5
Scares & Chills: 4/5
Cultural & Cinematic Importance: 5/5
Monster Action: 1/5
