Very Cool!!!

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

There are three particularly striking things about ' Diaboique '.First, it is a masterpiece of black and white cinematography.I have never seen another film that made such good use of luminescence, reflections and shadows and which dared so much to use such dim lighting in some scenes but very effectively.Secondly, the acting is superb all round. Everyone plays their role so convincingly it is as if they were born to play these particular roles.Simone Signouret does an especially good job.She exudes brazenness simply with subtle facial expressions and the way she moves.Finally, the plot never bogs down.The tension is kept up at all times and you keep wanting to see what happens next. A great thriller and an intriguing time capsule of 1950's France.

Since the age of 6, I've lived in the village where the school scenes were shot (that castle was at the time abandoned and Clouzot wanted to buy it to get his studios inside, but it was too expensive, now it's the Town Hall since 1968). Each time I went to school (not the movie's one), I kept thinking of that horrific movie and when I saw it at 15, I was quite impressed, discovering Clouzot's Noir filmography.Like the townspeople watching at the shooting and how the beautiful castle had become sinister, full of mud all around. During the shooting since three weeks, all the team was completely sad and sinister, shooting night and day. They got more joyful when eating in the local restaurants. A lot of villagers came at the gate to watch with excitement all the famous team shooting one of the most well known classic thrillers. Clouzot never shot again in that village, and no other movie was shot there.

What a fantastic, smart, macabre thriller this is. Director Henri- Georges Clouzot doesn't waste any time getting us emotionally involved, with a man (Paul Meurisse) abusing both his wife (Véra Clouzot) and his openly acknowledged mistress (Simone Signoret), and in making it apparent that the two are plotting to kill him. Meurisse and Clouzot run a boarding school full of rowdy little boys, and Signoret is another of the teachers there. Meurisse is mean to everybody, so we certainly don't sympathize with him. I'm not going to spoil this film by describing anything else. Trust me, it's best you don't know any more. Just sit back and watch it unfold, and you'll be happy you did. I will say that it's got a couple of incredibly eerie scenes that are well worthy of the often overused adjective 'classic'. This one is not just Hitchcock-esque, it's right up there with that director's best work.

Les diaboliques is a compelling mystery with a hint of crime & horror elements. It is about two women who conspire to murder their lover and the mysterious series of events that occur after his body disappears.The two protagonists', Nicole Horner (Simone Sgnoret), and Christina Delasalle (Véra Clouzot), performances helped add the horror aspect to the movie. They were captivating and navigated skillfully the guilt- determination dilemma. The settings were not that varied yet sufficient to the story's development and the lightning tricks helped fuel the viewer's curiosity and attachment to the story line.The innovative, eventful story line is complemented by the actors' performances and a spot on cinematography to amount to one of the few movies that could compete with Hitchcock in the genre he defined.An appropriate tag-line for the movie would be "things aren't always what they seem"It's a classic masterpiece of the genre that any film aficionado should not miss.