Diabolique (Les Diaboliques)

Henri-Georges Clouzot directed and produced the 1955 French psychological thriller Les Diaboliques, released in the United States as Diabolique. Blending film noir, crime drama and psychological horror, it opened in France in January 1955 and sold 3,674,380 tickets. Its ending is so famous that the credits ask viewers not to reveal it, and it is not revealed here.

The story begins with Michel Delassalle, headmaster of a boarding school owned by his wife, cruel to everyone around him. Véra Clouzot plays his wife Christina, and Simone Signoret plays Nicole Horner, a teacher at the school and his secret mistress. United by their hatred, the two women plan a seemingly perfect murder. The plan is carried out, but an odd event upsets everything. Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel also star; Michel Serrault, Robert Dalban and Jacques Varennes are in the cast.

The film is adapted from Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac's 1952 novel Celle qui n'était plus, scripted by Jérôme Géronimi and Clouzot. After finishing The Wages of Fear, Clouzot optioned the rights, keeping Alfred Hitchcock from making the film. It helped inspire Hitchcock's Psycho, and Psycho novelist Robert Bloch named it his favorite horror film. It won the Louis Delluc Prize and was remade in the US in 1996.