Thanks for the memories!

ridiculous rating

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Michel Delassalle is the principal of a boarding school, and widely loathed. This loathing extends to his wife, Christina, and his mistress, Nicole Horner, both of whom work at the school. The two of them hatch a plan to murder Mr Delassalle while having the perfect alibi. They carry out the plan...but then his body disappears.Clever, classy thriller from French director HG Clouzot. Intelligent, intriguing plot and well-drawn characters, the sort of story Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle would be proud of, and Alfred Hitchcock would love to have directed. Great twist towards the end. Good direction by Clouzot: he sets the scene well and builds the tension in superb fashion, giving a claustrophobic feeling to proceedings. Solid performances all round.A classic thriller.

. . . of this often mislabeled flick. If you cut out the groaning toilets, bellowing pipes, thundering bath tubs, and plugged up pools gurgling throughout DIABOLIQUE, you wouldn't have much of a movie left. As the plot takes its characters from city to village to last chance gas station all around France, the one constant here is lavatory facilities that no doubt date back to the Era of Napoleon (if not Charlemagne). Should anyone in a large building unleash a loo, the resulting racket proves ear-shattering for folks several floors or hallways removed. Tubs are even worse, easily drowning out the din made by lawn mowers or revving jet engines, as these "Moaning Myrtles" register 150 decibels plus. It's not too hard to understand why the average French swimming pool is filthier than the waste tank at a pig farm, given the lacking of being drained after their initial installation. DIABOLIQUE documents why no one from Nice to Dunkirk dare empty a natatorium, because the ensuing cacophony is enough to literally raise the dead. My brother-in-law is a master plumber, and he tells me that his French counterparts are eligible for "Poolitical Asylum" in the U.S.

There are three particularly striking things about ' Diaboique '.First, it is a masterpiece of black and white cinematography.I have never seen another film that made such good use of luminescence, reflections and shadows and which dared so much to use such dim lighting in some scenes but very effectively.Secondly, the acting is superb all round. Everyone plays their role so convincingly it is as if they were born to play these particular roles.Simone Signouret does an especially good job.She exudes brazenness simply with subtle facial expressions and the way she moves.Finally, the plot never bogs down.The tension is kept up at all times and you keep wanting to see what happens next. A great thriller and an intriguing time capsule of 1950's France.

Diabolique twists the convention of a love triangle into something completely different. It might more accurately be described as a hate triangle. Paul Meurisse's character can't stand either his wife, Vera Clouzot, nor his mistress, Simone Signoret. And they, in turn, hate him, and, somewhat more naturally, don't like each other very much.Having resolved to kill the haughty husband/lover, Clouzot and Signoret bungle the act, or so it seems. They become panicky when an increasingly disturbing series of incidents both seem to point out their guilt and leave doubt that Meurisse is actually dead. The tension between them increases as a result, as Clouzot's innocent/hypochondriac character seems to physically melt down, whereas Signoret, steely and determined, only becomes more intense.Essentially, all three characters are unsympathetic. Both husband and mistress are inflexible and domineering, while the wife passive/aggressively wants the other two to feel guilty merely for existing. Admittedly, she is wronged by both the others, and is the only one of the three who seems at home working with the kids they're all responsible for.Clouzot's collapse literally in the face of her 'victim' is thoroughly convincing, and builds at a dizzying pace to its macabre climax. Having said that, and, as much as I admire Diabolique as a whole, I admit there are a few questionable turns.It seems odd that the two 'murderesses' can't find a more discrete place to dump the body than the pool on the same school property where they all work. The 'murder' sequence itself is fairly convincing from Clouzot's point of view, which helps suspend the audience's disbelief, but Meurisse could've survived the Inquisition's test for witchcraft.What elevates this movie's status as one of the best thrillers, despite a few little flaws, is the creepiness lurking in everyday, even dull circumstances, which each of the main characters allows to grow, with truly 'diabolic' consequences.