At a boarding school outside of Paris, an unlikely alliance forms. Christina Delassalle, a frail teacher and the owner of the school, meets with Nicole Horner, another teacher and the known mistress of her husband. Though Michel Delassalle was once romantic with them both, the wretched man has treated each cruelly. And so, despite some hesitation on Christina’s part, the two set off to get rid of Michel—forever. The unlikely co-conspirators lure Michel away from the school and, over a tense evening, drug and drown him. The plan is to dump his body in the school pool and hope it looks like an accident. But when strange occurrences start to happen, Christina and Nicole become twisted with guilt, torment, and fear. Did they botch the murder? Are they being blackmailed? Or worse—are they being haunted? At the request of the film itself, I’d rather not say.
“Les Diaboliques” was recommended to me by a Cast Member I worked with 3 years ago. So yes—if you recommend a film to me, it can often take THAT LONG to get around to.
But this film is fantastic. Its twists and turns are so suspenseful that I struggle to find another way to describe it but ‘Hitchcock-ian’. And yet, that’s not entirely fair because it was released during and before Hitchcock’s prime. The film is a stylish, tense ride in which you find yourself rooting for murderers and hoping for their safe passage. Signoret and Clout are fantastic as Nicole and Christina. There’s sort of a “Jackie O and Marlyn form a friendly, albeit reluctant partnership” feel to their interactions. Meurisse’s Michel is a terrific villain. The film’s ending is whiplash inducing, slightly mysterious, and satisfying. Seriously, I don’t know how to say more without giving more away, but if you have HBO Max and the tolerance for a tense, 1950’s black-and-white French film, give this one a whirl.