LES DIABOLIQUES

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The setting for this 1955 psychological thriller, directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, is a Parisian boarding school for boys, run by a headmaster who is both married to one of the teachers and having an indiscreet affair with another (it is France after all).

He’s a nasty piece of work who physically and emotionally abuses his wife, Christina, who he only seems to have married for her money (apparently she owns the school which stuck me as weird but never mind).

Because he is so unpleasant it seems at the start of the film that the mistress, Nicole, has taken Christina under her wing, even to the extent of concocting a plan to murder the guy.  Christina has a bad heart condition and is rather weak-willed but Nicole (who has a very strong personality) manages to persuade her to be an accomplice to the crime.

There is considerable suspense in the first half of the film arising from whether the plan will succeed.  In essence it is to drug the husband so as to be able to drown him in a bathtub, before transferring the body to the school swimming pool.

Everything goes smoothly until the moment the pool is drained and to Christina and Nicole's consternation there is no body!

Now there is a mystery (what on earth is going on?) and understandably the nerves of the two women begin to fray.  The situation isn’t helped by the arrival on the scene of a retired police commissioner who volunteers to help find the missing headmaster.

The film builds to a masterful sequence of great suspense which ends with the truth finally being revealed.  It's a very effective conclusion even if it might not prove that great a surprise to any connoisseur of Agatha Christie who knows always to distrust any superficial interpretation of a love triangle.

And indeed if the film wasn’t so expertly directed and acted it might be dismissed as a routine murder mystery, rather than the suspense classic it is.  Simone Signoret as Nicole and Véra Clouzot are both superb in their contrasting roles, and all the supporting characters are very well drawn, including various members of staff inside and outside the classroom who provide some levity to contrast with the main storyline.


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