Diabolique [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Henri-Georges Clouzot

Overview

Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic suspense film remains as taut and surprising a thriller as was ever made. Set in a remote boarding school, it is a tale of murder, deception and psychological terror that begins when a long-suffering wife teams up with her husband's ice-blooded lover to murder the man who has made their lives so miserable. He is the headmaster there and after they kill him, they decide to dispose of the body in the school's seldom-used swimming pool. Afterwards, the women fret that perhaps they left clues and so return to the pool. Much to their horror, the school master's body is nowhere to be found. Making matters worse are reports that he is in fact, still alive.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/17/2011
UPC:	0715515070812
Original Release:	1954
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:57:00
Sales rank:	9,291

Special Features

Selected-Scene Commentary by French-Film Scholar Kelley Conway; New Video Introduction by Serge Bromberg, CoDirector of Henri-Georges Clouzot's "Inferno"; ; New Video Interview with Novelist and Film Critic Kim Newman; ; Original Theatrical Trailer; PLUS: A Booklet featuring an Essay by Film Critic Terrence Rafferty

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Simone Signoret	Nicole Horner
Paul Meurisse	Michel Delasalle
V?ra Clouzot	Christina Delasalle
Charles Vanel	Inspector Fichet
Jean Brochard	Plantiveau
Noel Roquevert	Herboux
Therese Dorny	Mme. Herboux
Pierre Larquey	Drain
Michel Serrault	Raymond
Yves-Marie Maurin	Moinet
Georges Poujouly	Soudieu
Jean Temerson	Hotel Valet
Georges Chamarat	Dr. Loisy
Jacques Varennes	Prof. Bridoux
Roberto Rodrigo	Jose
Jean Pierre Bonnefous	De Gascuel
Michel Dumur	Ritberger
Henri Humbert	Patard
Robert Dalban	Actor
Camille Gu?rini	Actor
Jacques Hilling	Actor
Jean Lef?bvre	Actor
Georges Van Parys	Composer

Technical Credits

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Jerome Geronimi

Ren? Masson

Frederic Grendel

Henri-Georges Clouzot	Producer,Screenwriter
Jerome Geronimi	Screenwriter
Ren? Masson	Screenwriter
Frederic Grendel	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

French filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot created enough pulse-racing suspense in just two movies to take his place in history next to Alfred Hitchcock as one of the finest thriller directors ever. Clouzot followed up his remarkable 1953 action film The Wages of Fear with the dark and mysterious Diabolique (Les Diaboliques). Wages has moments of almost preternatural tension and is arguably the more interesting film, but Diabolique most captured the popular imagination. That's probably due to the film's familiar yet strikingly fresh combination of chilling atmospherics, sexual intrigue, macabre pacing, and influential "horror" plot construction. Typical of many French films of the 1950s, Clouzot's style was influenced by American film noir; unlike the French New Wave films which followed it, Diabolique also revealed the German expressionist roots of noir. The film has been remade three times, as Reflections of Murder, House of Secrets and the pitiful 1996 Diabolique, and many of its plot twists have been recycled in countless other thrillers.