Customer Reviews

Criterion Collection: Diabolique [Import]

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Director Henri-Georges Clouzot's DIABOLIQUE is one of these movies we, in french speaking countries, have seen at least a dozen times on TV in our teen days. Always with pleasure. In part, because of the terrific cast but mainly because of the whodunit plot.

And now, a lot of years after (ten ?), I bought the DVD right after its release. I don't know exactly why, DIABOLIQUE being not the kind of movie you always put in your 10 best list. Maybe it was due to Vera Clouzot, the director's wife, who appeared only in a few movies with her spanish accent and who, in DIABOLIQUE, with her hair nicely combed, plays a character similar to the heroins of the fairy tales of our childhood. Or is it Simone Signoret who, with Anna Magnani and Bette Davis, is a star whose light hasn't faded with the years passing by. Paul Meurisse perhaps ? Or Charles Vanel, or Michel Serrault, already perfect in a comic role ?

What I know for sure is that I can watch DIABOLIQUE again and again without being tired of it. In my opinion, it is a classic movie in the most noble sense of the term.

No extra-features with the movie, sound perfect but a copy with some scratches and often grainy. Strange when one thinks of the quality of Criterion's work on, for instance, Ingmar Bergman's THE SEVENTH SEAL.

A DVD for your library.

Parallels are always drawn with Psycho - but I think this brilliant movie had a much stronger influence on Vertigo. Also look for the similarity between Charles Vanel's detective and Peter Falk's Columbo! Criterion have a well deserved reputation for the quality of their DVD releases. It's a real tragedy that we don't have companies who care as much about film restoration on this side of the Atlantic.

WHAT AN ENJOYABLE TIME I HAD WATCHING DIABOLIQUE! THIS MOVIE IS A CLASSIC MYSTERY AND IN THE END I DON'T BELIEVE THAT YOU WILL BE REALLY SUPRISED.ACTUALLY IT IS REALLY EASY TO PREDICT THE TWIST MUCH BEFORE YOU COME TO THE END BUT STILL THIS IS A GREAT PICTURE WITH A MARVELLOUS CAST FROM A VERY TALENTED FRENCH DIRECTOR . THE ONLY REASON I GIVE 4 STARS TO THIS DVD IS NOT BECAUSE THE MOVIE DESERVES IT BUT BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF SUPPLEMENTS.IF YOU LIKE MYSTERIES,JUST BUY IT EYES CLOSED.

One of the most ingenious, chilling movies EVER made. I had wanted to see this film for at least 20 years and, when I finally saw it for myself,- it truly lived up to all my expectations!! The mistress AND the wife of a sadistic schoolmaster conspire to murder the man, carry it out, and soon begin to wonder whether they covered their tracks effectively. It sounds simple, but the characters seem fearfully knowing and there are undertones of strange, tainted pleasures and punishments; plot twists and double-crosses abound. Clouzot's Grand Guignol techniques are so calculatedly grisly that they seem silly, yet they succeed in making one feel queasy and sordid and scared. French with English subtitles. Remade (ludicrously) in 1996.

Another gorgeous transfer. NOT for fans of the 1996 Hollywood re-make. Criterion Collection DVDs are simply the best out there. Bravo.

This is a film that means to get under your skin, and it succeeds. A man's mistress and his wife, finely portrayed by Simone Signoret and Vera Clouzot, respectively, plot to murder him...but then the body disappears. And that's only the first twist in a story as visually inventive as it is convoluted. Bleak and cold-blooded from the start, DIABOLIQUE takes a slow, leisurely approach to its storytelling, but with each gradual development lays on an extra layer of tension, then proceeds to tighten the suspense like a screw. The result is a genuinely disturbing final half hour that culminates in one of the most shocking conclusions ever put on screen. Shot in stark black-and-white and without the benefit of a soundtrack (which actually heightens the suspense), DIABOLIQUE exists solely for the glee with which it executes its surprise ending, but what an ending it is. Anyone who gives away this devastating shocker of a conclusion ought to be drowned in his own bathtub.

LIke alot of scary movies, it didn't become scary until about the last scene. It makes more sense if you understand the frech, the englishisn't at all what the french is saying, which is true to almost all subtitled movies.

Great art movie by Henri-Georges Clouzot, and phenomenal performances by Signoret and Vera Clouzot. I wished they were both 41 youngers and could have performed in the 1996 re-make. Would have been interesting to compare Stone to Signoret. Unfortunately, the DVD lacks quality, the same sub-title appeared for about 15 minutes, therefore if you don't speak French, you may be a little frustrated. Good movie to watch, since it will make you appreciate the effect technology had the last 40 years in movie making business. However, I would not recommend the purchase of this movie. If you have the money to spend, buy the 1996 re-make. Many thanks to amazon.com for bringing this movie to me and the public.

So dramatic and heart wrenching

DIABOLIQUE is a cautionary tale about the need to keep your swimming pool clean, or not, depending on the state of your marriage.

Christina Delasalle (Vera Clouzot) owns a French boarding school for boys, which she runs with her husband Michel (Paul Meurisse). Also in residence is Michel's mistress, Nicole (Simone Signoret). The two women have become uneasy allies against Michel, who physically and emotionally abuses Christina. The two plot his murder.

Over a holiday weekend, during which the school will be deserted except for the caretaker, Nicole and Christina motor off to Nicole's primary residence in a town some miles away, the latter without Michel's permission. Once the women are at Nicole's place, Michel is called knowing he'll immediately come to retrieve his wayward wife without telling the caretaker. He does what's predicted. Some whiskey is drugged; Michel drinks it and falls asleep. The plotters subsequently drown the brute in the bathtub, placing a heavy bronze statue on his chest to keep him underwater overnight. The next day, the body is schlepped back to the school in a trunk-sized basket, and subsequently dumped into a swimming pool so filthy that the bottom is invisible. The working hypothesis is that once Michel floats to the surface, he'll be thought to have drowned there. But the corpse never appears and isn't part of the sludge at the bottom when the pool is drained, ostensibly to recover some lost keys. Uh-oh. And he looked mighty dead to me.

DIABOLIQUE probably worked better when it was originally released (1955). It was a simpler time. I really didn't become engaged with the plot until the water was drained from the pool and ... voila! The last third of the film provided an opportunity for mild intellectual curiosity, and the last ten minutes or so a modicum of suspense. Virtually useless was Alfred Fichet (Charles Vanel), the ex-police official turned detective, who leisurely investigates and makes Peter Falk's Columbo seem positively animated in comparison.

As a child of the latter half of the twentieth century, I can't but believe that special effects and color cinematography, combined with edgier sound, could produce a more knuckle-biting experience. (Ok, ok. I know that Sharon Stone did a panned remake of DIABOLIQUE in 1996. But I'm thinking of actresses of the caliber of, say, Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett in the Christina and Nicole roles respectively.) Perhaps it's just because I resent the fact that the original version has been decribed as a "grisly, horror classic" when, to my mind, it's just dated and neither grisly nor horrific.