Diabolique (1955) (massive spoilers)

[akiratubo]

I have a strong suspicion that this is one of M. Night Shayamalan's favorite movies.

No subtitles on my copy, so I've given everyone my own names.

The setting is an extremely depressing boarding school for boys in France.  The faculty consists of the headmaster, a***ole, his wife Wifey, another female teacher named Nicole, two male teachers, Mr. Fruit and Mr. Codger, and the groundskeeper and his wife.  Life there really sucks for everyone.

a***ole has been having an affair with Nicole, right out in the open.  He likes to beat and rape both his wife and Nicole.  Eventually, Wifey and Nicole decide to lure a***ole away from the school and kill him.  They do, at approximately the one hour mark.

Until that one hour mark, Diabolique is extremely good.  If it ended at that one hour mark, it would go on my "best" list.

Unfortunately, it goes on for almost another hour.

Wifey and Nicole dump a***ole's body in the school's disturbingly algae-infested swimming pool.  The idea is that his body will float up after a while and the authorities will think he fell in while drunk.  Yeah, he's also a drunken a***ole.

His body doesn't surface and Wifey starts to crack.  She's a devout Catholic woman and is having, shall we say, a little trouble accepting what she's done.  With a***ole's body not turning up, she also becomes paranoid that he's not actually dead.  Lt. Colombo showing up periodically to do his "just one more thing" routine doesn't help.  (Ok, it's not really Colombo, it's a French Detective.  I submit that whomever created Colombo had this guy in mind.)

Nicole eventually concocts an excuse for Groundskeeper to drain the pool.  Gasp!  Shock!  a***ole's body isn't there!  Wifey really starts to lose it and becomes addicted to the tranquilizers Nicole administers to her (apparently in the butt).

Nicole decides to get out while the getting's good, so Wifey is on her own.  a***ole's zombie comes to terrorize her late one night and she dies of a heart attack.

Well, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?  Remember -- I told you this must be one of M. Night Shayamalan's most favorite movies, so it obviously has some kind of stupid "twist" that makes the good parts of the movie retroactively suck.

Here it is:

It isn't a***ole's zombie.  He was never dead.  Nicole and a***ole were in cahoots to scare Wifey to death and get her money (or something).  Colombo shows back up at this point, too, but I'm not sure if he's there to arrest them or if he was also in on it.  If he was there to arrest them, just let me say, "GREAT timing, you frickin' jerk.  What?  Couldn't show up thirty seconds sooner?"

At any rate, the movie ends with the school shutting down.

Boo!  BOOOOOOO!  I almost broke the damn DVD in half, so great was my outrage.  I felt as though someone had just fed me the most delicious meal in the world and then told me the secret ingredient was s**t!

The first hour is still very, very good though, drawing most of its strength from the contrast between Wifey and Nicole.  Wifey is small, weak of body and will.  Nicole is as big and strong as any of the men in the movie, with an iron will to match.  My favorite bit of contrast has Nicole effortlessly recorking a wine bottle with one slap, while Wifey later has difficulty pushing the cork back in even a little bit.  Their individual reactions to a***ole's "death" are pretty amusing as well.

It's interesting how far the movie goes to suggest they have entered into an, ahem, close friendship but never makes it explicit.  One scene in which Wifey and Nicole are about to go to sleep in the hotel room they've rented looks like the lead-in to a lesbian porn scene!  No, really.  Just watch the movie and you'll effortlessly spot the scene I'm talking about.

(Hmm.  I suppose that Nicole drawing Wifey into a homosexual relationship could be part of the plan.  It would increase Wifey's Catholic guilt by several orders of magnitude and possibly make her suicidal.)

Too bad the ending was so awful.  Oh, well, I can always just turn it off after that first hour.

[The Burgomaster]

Actually, I think this is an excellent movie.  However, Clouzot directed an earlier film called THE WAGES OF FEAR, which is far superior.

[peter johnson]

Get a subtitled version --
You're missing a great deal, especially the implication at the end of the film -- the school isn't
"shutting down" either, by the way, just closing for the term -- that there's still a real ghost out there -- what does the schoolboy say about who he spoke with?
Watch it again -- there's more there than you get the first time.  I've seen it 8 or 10 times over the years, and it holds up.
peter johnson/denny crane

[Mofo Rising]

I just recently watched both WAGES OF FEAR and DIABOLIQUE.

WAGES OF FEAR is a great movie, though I prefer William Friedkin's remake SORCERER.  That's probably because I saw that version first, though.  They're both good.  If you can't get tension out of desparate men hauling nitroglycerin across the jungle, time to pack in your dreams of filmmaking.

I really liked DIABOLIQUE as well.  The smaller, darker actress was Clouzet's wife, who is also in WAGES.  While it certainly holds up as a film, I didn't find it particularly suspenseful.  I think because I discounted the supernatural as an explanation, which was probably a mistake.  Without that possibility, the film turns into a whodunnit and I figured out the ending about twenty minutes before it happened.

Still, I would say it is quite a good film.  It was remade about ten years ago starring Chazz Palminteri and Sharon Stone.  I have no interest in seeing the remake.

Question, the liner notes claim that it was an open inspiration for PSYCHO, but I'm not seeing any direct correlation, other than mood.  Theories?

[Scott]

DIABOLIQUE is another film that has been high on my list of films to view for a long time now. Sounds like a good one.

[loyal1]

A sad regretful sigh*  I have actually seen the remake first :(

[BoyScoutKevin]

Actually, before it was remade for the big screen, it was remade twice for television: "Reflections of Murder" and "House of Secrets." And the British film, "The Corpse," while not a direct remake of "Diabolique," has certain similiarities to the film.

And, if you turn to today's www.msn.com, there is an article on the "10 Best Twist Movie Ends."
And which is #1 on the list? Yes, boys and girls, it is "Diabolique."