Diabolique Review 5/5

 

Coming off of films like The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942) (his Directorial Debut), Le Corbeau (1943), Quai des Orfevres (1947), Manon (1949) along with the Wages of Fear (1953) (one of my favorite films ever), Henri-Georges Clouzot was growing in reputation only to gain critical and commercial acclaim in the process. He was considered to be one of France's greatest directors at the time due to those string of successes in France.

Clouzot originally started off as a screenwriter in the 1930s and by the time he transitioned to be a director in the 1940s, he still continued to write screenplays for his films. He directed and made his first short film called La Terreur des Batignolles from a screenplay from Jacques de Baroncelli, who started off directing silent films in France from the 1910s to the 1930s and transitioned to directing films in America and Italy in the 1940s. The short film was considered by some people to be a real introduction to Clouzot's style of expressive shadows and lighting contrasts, but his later wife Ines de Gonzalez did not believe that claim at all. 

Clouzot's wife Vera Clouzot (who previously appeared in Clouzot's The Wages of Fear) gave her husband the 1952 book called She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac only for Clouzot and his brother Jean (who went by the pseudonym Jerome Geronimi) to adapt it for the screen for 18 months in the process. In addition, he ended up getting the screenplay rights to Boileau and Narcejac's novel as a way to make the film. He changed the title of the book for the film adaptation as he was developing the film. The name of the film is called Diabolique, and it will continue Clouzot's success and reputation as one of France's most famous and legendary directors.

Best friends Nicole Horner (Simone Signoret, Oscar Winner for Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1959)) and Christina Delassalle (Vera Clouzot) work at a boarding school located in France. Nicole and Christina work as teachers at the school and Christina's husband Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) runs the school with a really terrifying iron fist. He abuses Christina, who has a heart condition along with Nicole too. Nicole and Christina are so sick and tired of Michel's controlling and possessive nature that they conspire to kill him by drowning him in the water. They drown him in the water only for chaos to ensue and as a result, a detective named Alfred Fichet (Charles Vanel, The Wages of Fear) is investigating the murder while the two women began to realize that plotting the murder gives them more than they bargained for as they uncover a sinister secret that puts their lives in danger for the worse.

Diabolique was originally supposed to be adapted by none other than the legendary Alfred Hitchcock (one of my favorite directors of all time). Hitchcock was fascinated by the novel She Who Was No More in that he was planning to direct the film. However, Clouzot ended up getting the rights to Boileau and Narcejac's novel only for Hitchcock to respond back by adapting Robert Bloch's novel Psycho in 1960 as a way to compete with Clouzot to see who will make the better film. The two films ended up being classics in the long run and Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho, really loved Diabolique. 

The film has some elements that were different from the book. Clouzot ended up changing the setting from Nantes to his birthplace Niort in Western France. He then proceeded to getting rid of the insurance scam that was the motivation of the book and switched the genders of the killers as a way to enhance his wife Vera's role as a more imperative role in the film. Clouzot went on to invent and create the school setting that was not in the book. Meanwhile, speaking of the female characters, there were roles and names being switched in the movie. In the book, Lucienne was the primary female character but, in the movie, she became the secondary character, and was renamed Nicole. Another female character in the book went through another role and name change in the movie and she was Mireille. Mireille was the secondary character in the book but in the movie, she became the primary character with a weak heart and was renamed Christina thus being central in the movie. 

Clouzot filmed Diabolique from August 18 to November 30, 1954, and he wanted a creepy building for the movie in order to create an authentic sense of dread in the process. Clouzot's assistant Michel Romanoff helped Clouzot find the creepy building that he was looking for and it was located in L 'Etang-la-Ville between Saint-Cloud and Bois-du-Boulogne. The building and swimming pool reflected the eerie and rambunctious nature that Clouzot was looking for only to stick with it by filming it for five weeks. The location for Nicole's house was filmed in Montfort-I'Amaury which was the opposite building of the one that Clouzot used for Le Corbeau, and the morgue scenes were filmed in the Institute Medico-legal in Paris. 

The rest of the locations and scenes were filmed at Saint-Maurice Studios, which was Southeast in Paris thus taking nine weeks to film. In addition, cinematographer Armand Thirard ended up using camera crews in order to speed up shooting that was not going according to schedule, so the filming went past the 48 days that were required to finish filming. The film's title was originally supposed to be called Les Veuves (The Widows) but was rejected due to it not being marketable. It was changed to Les Demoniaques in the midst of filming but was changed to Les Diaboliques. Les Diaboliques was originally the title of a collection of short stories by the author Barbey d'Aurevilly so Clouzot accepted the title under the condition of giving credit to d'Aurevilly only to open the film by quoting d'Aurevilly.

When it came to casting, Clouzot casted Simone Signoret as Nicole. He previously casted her husband Yves Montand in The Wages of Fear (my favorite Clouzot film) only for Clouzot and his wife Vera to be friends with Signoret and Montand. Signoret signed an eight-week contract and much to her surprise, the shooting lasted 16 weeks in the process. She neglected to read the small print which explains why she was paid for only eight weeks of work. Signoret will go on to be a successful actress thus appearing in Jean-Pierre Melville's Army of Shadows (1959) along with winning the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in director Jack Clayton's (one of the key directors of the British New Wave movement and directed the Innocents starring Deborah Kerr) Room at the Top (1959).

For his wife, Vera, Clouzot was brightening the light for her in order to make her prominent in the film for the sake of giving her presence. As far as Paul Meurisse was concerned, Clouzot knew him since 1939 when Meurisse was pursuing a singing career. Meurisse became a well-reputed actor in France in the 1940s only to play rambunctious and icy villains and due to him playing Villains, he ended up getting the role of Michel Delassalle.

Clouzot casted two actors who were regulars in his films. Charles Vanel, who plays detective Alfred Fichel, previously appeared in the Wages of Fear and Pierre Larquey, who plays M. Drain appeared in the Murderer Lives at Number 21 and later appears in Les Espions. 

After filming wrapped in 1954, Clouzot had issues with his wife Vera and Simone Signoret only to not be on speaking terms again with them. However, Paul Meurisse was the only one who was in good terms with the actresses and the director. 

Diabolique was not only a critical and financial success in France but was also equally successful in the United States too. Its success in the United States was shocking considering that not a lot of Foreign Films do that well with American audiences. In addition, it won the New York Film Critics Circle Film Award for Best Foreign Film along with also winning a special Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Foreign Film. As successful as it was, Diabolique was panned by two critics of the film critic publication, the Famous Cahiers du Cinema, who will later be instrumental in ushering the French New Wave, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. They thought Clouzot was lacking in originality with Diabolique only to not know how great the movie was. 

Diabolique has influenced the Hammer Film Company to where they admitted that the film has influenced them to make their own movies with horror and thriller elements due to its influence. Plus, it was remade in 1996 starring Sharon Stone along with Isabelle Adjani and directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik. The remake was written by Don Roos (Single White Female) and also starred Oscar Winner Kathy Bates in the Charles Vanel role as the Detective along with Chazz Palminteri as the villain. It was not as successful as the original thus being considered inferior to it.

All of the accolades are well deserved as Diabolique is not only scary but also surprisingly humane in terms of how its thrills come from real-life situations like messed-up marriage and abused authority thus keeping its thrills grounded in reality. 

Henri-Georges Clouzot's direction was truly superb in that he was able to not only thrill me but also make care about how marriage and the abuse of authority can instigate ubiquitous chaos for the worse. Plus, as a result, his direction is successfully well-rounded due to the combination of thrills and heart.

The screenplay by Clouzot and his brother Jean has great dialogue that surprisingly made me believe that the characters feel like real people in the midst of the thrills only for the dialogue to be well-written.

The cinematography by Armand Thirard was truly atmospheric to where it made me feel as if I was in the same creepy Boarding School environment that the characters were in and compositionally, it was well-filmed thus being well-balanced with the dark shadows along with bright grays. 

The acting by Simone Signoret was truly superlative in terms of giving Nicole a dark and sinister interior to go along with her friendly exterior only to make me more concerned and disappointed with her at the same time because of her great acting.

Vera Clouzot is truly the standout here as Christina and her sense of humanity is what keeps the film from being heartless. I say that since I genuinely cared about her so much to where I empathized with her struggles with her marriage and friendship only to be with her by staying with her throughout the terror as a result of acting skills.

Paul Meurisse was truly eerie and rambunctiously authoritative as Michel that he made me feel terrified and angry at the same time due to creating a very chilling and believable villain. Charles Vanel may not be as great as the other performances in the film, but he still gave it his all as detective Alfred Fichet.

Diabolique will always be one of the greatest films of all time as a result of its balance between realistic thrills and genuine heart without being heartless and schmaltzy. It will still continue to hold up after all these years. God bless.