If you look past the fact that this is a French film that is set in France, Les Diaboliques feels eerily reminiscent of an Alfred Hitchcock film. In fact, the story goes that Hitchcock was interested in buying the rights to the novel that this eventual film was based on but director Henri-Georges Clouzot managed to get to the French authors a few hours earlier. The rest is history as it went on  to be regarded as one of the best thrillers ever made.

Christine Delasalle is the headmistress of a boarding school outside Paris and lives in terror of her bullying husband, Michel Delasalle. Oddly enough she makes common cause with her husband’s mistress, Nicole Horner, a teacher at the school as both of them are badly treated by the husband. Though Christine is pious and has a weak heart, she eventually allows herself to be convinced by Nicole to carry out an elaborate plan to lure him out of the school and murder him. Despite some complications, the plan works and the two women hope that the death will be ruled as an accident once the body has been discovered. Yet days pass and there is no sign of the body. Worse, there are worrying clues that Michel may still be around, ranging from the suit that he wore being returned from the cleaners and the old standby of his face appearing in a window when a group photograph is taken. The stress drives Christine into a nervous breakdown even while a retired police detective pokes around the school to find out what really happened.

You can probably tell just from this short synopsis why Hitchcock was so interested in filming this story. It’s more interesting however to note all of the differences between this film and what Hitchcock would have made. For one thing, while the more established director always tries to hook in the audience right from the first frame, under Clouzot Les Diaboliques is something of a slow burn. The film takes its time to establish the characters and the locale. Many scenes don’t have an obvious plot-related point except that they help to establish the atmosphere and are beautifully shot. The result is something that is less tight, less incisive and maybe even less tense. On the other hand, it also feels more natural, the characters more like real people instead of archetypes made to serve places in the plot. Under Hitchcock, the character of Nicole Horner for example would obviously have been another ice-cold blonde while here she’s a more rounded character. This reduced emphasis on signposting leaves the audience with less certainty about where exactly the film is heading and what exactly we should expect, something that I find to be delightful and an absolutely crucial part of enjoying this film.

This feeling of being unbalanced is exacerbated by the red herrings that the director must have thrown out deliberately. Does the fuel pump attendant suspect that the ladies have done something? Will anything come of the upstairs neighbors whose keen ears note that the ladies drew a bath during the night and yet never drained the tub until the morning? The way the retired police detective is also wonderfully delicious as Christine has effectively hired albeit by accident a private investigator to investigate a murder that she committed herself. I know this film predates Columbo by a couple of decades, but I couldn’t help but see the famous detective’s mannerisms and stoop in the character played by Charles Vanel. I also enjoyed all of the little details of life at the school, such as the unruliness of the boys and the surliness of the other teachers at how the miserly Michel waters down their wine.

I actually managed to guess the truth a short while before it is revealed and I didn’t find the iconic revelatory scene of Michel in the bathtub to be very scary. I think this may be because I never really emphasized much with Christine as a point of view character and found her to be a fairly standard example of a fragile woman as a horror film victim. This is also a contrast to Hitchcock who was always a master of the twist and its revelation. In Les Diaboliques, it’s the build-up and the supporting characters who are more interesting and fun too watch. Still this is considered a classic of the thriller genre for good reason and I really enjoyed the experience of watching one that is for once isn’t American or British.