Diabolique ( Les Diaboliques )

Diabolique (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Les Diaboliques
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Edgar Allan Poe Awards
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Australia ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
100 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Posters
Scene Access
Trailer(s)
Black & White

Movie filmed in 1955 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Henri-Georges Clouzot

Written By:
Pierre Boileau (novel)
Henri-Georges Clouzot

Actors:
Simone Signoret ..... Nicole Horner
Véra Clouzot ..... Christina Delasalle (as Vera Clouzot)
Paul Meurisse ..... Michel Delasalle
Charles Vanel ..... Alfred Fichet, private detective
Jean Brochard ..... Plantiveau, the groundsman
Pierre Larquey ..... Mr. Drain, a teacher
Michel Serrault ..... Mr. Raimond, teacher
Thérèse Dorny ..... Madame Herboux
Noël Roquevert ..... Mr. Herboux
Yves-Marie Maurin ..... Moinet, a schoolboy
Georges Poujouly ..... Soudieu, a schoolboy
Georges Chamarat ..... Dr. Loisy
Jacques Varennes ..... Professor Bridoux
Robert Dalban ..... Gas station attendant
Jean Lefebvre ..... Drunk soldier

Synopsis:

Christina and Michel Delasalle are a married couple who run a private boarding school. Delasalle is a tyrant who bullies both his wife and his mistress, Nicole. Having been beaten by Delasalle, Nicole finally persuades Christina that they should murder their tormentor. The two women lure Delasalle back to Nicole's lodgings where Chistiana drugs him and Nicole drowns him in a bath tub. Later, the two women transport the body in a basket back to the school and dump it in the swimming pool, hoping that someone will soon discover the body. The following day, the body has not been found and, racked with anxiety, the two women order the pool to be drained. To their horror, the body has disappeared. Then the suit that Delasalle was wearing when he was killed is returned to them, dry-cleaned… Could Delasalle still be alive, or is someone trying to drive the two women to distraction, maybe to blackmail them? The truth is more sinister and gruesome than you can imagine…

Christina Delasalle suffers greatly at the hands of her brutish husband Michel. She inherited the boys boarding school they run but it's clearly Michel who is in charge. With Nicole Horner - one of the teachers and Michel's former lover - they decide to kill him. They lure him to Nicole's house where he is drugged and drowned in the bath. They then dispose of his body in the school murky and algae-filled swimming pool. After several days, his body fails to float up to the surface and when the pool is drained, his body is nowhere to be found. Christina, who has a serious condition, is terrified especially after one of the students says he saw him. By chance, she meets a retired police inspector who decides to look into the case.

In this heralded French terror classic by director-screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot, the wife of the headmaster of a school for boys tires of his violent treatment of her, along with his philandering, and teams up with his mistress (Simone Signoret) to drown him and make it appear as a suicide. When the body goes missing and sightings of the supposedly dead man are reported all over town, the two mismatched women must uncover what happened to the body before it's discovered what they've done. Upon its release, Clouzot urged all who saw the film not to reveal its surprise ending--- one which still stands as one of the original 'shock' endings.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 18 October, 2006.