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The story blends elements of thriller and horror, with the plot focusing on a woman and her husband's mistress who conspire to murder the man. It was the 10th highest-grossing film of the year in France, with a total of 3,674,380 admissions. The film also received the 1954 Louis Delluc Prize.
Clouzot, after finishing "The Wages of Fear" (1953), optioned the screenplay rights, preventing Alfred Hitchcock from making the film. The film helped inspire Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960). Robert Bloch, the author of the novel "Psycho", stated in an interview that his all-time favorite horror film was "Les Diaboliques".
Plot
A second-rate boarding school in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, in the Paris metropolitan area,[6] is run by the tyrannical and cruel Michel Delassalle. The school is owned, though, by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina, an émigrée from Venezuela. Michel also has an extramarital relationship with Nicole Horner, another teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel. He is cruel to the students, beats Nicole, and mocks Christina about her heart condition.
Unable to stand his mistreatment any longer, Nicole devises a plan to get rid of Michel forever. Though hesitant at first, Christina ultimately consents to help Nicole. Using a threatened divorce to lure Michel to Nicole's apartment building in Niort, a town several hundred kilometers away, Christina sedates him. The two women then drown him in a bathtub and, driving back to the school, dump his body in the neglected swimming pool. When his corpse floats to the top, they think it will appear to have been an accident. Almost everything goes according to their plans until the body fails to surface. Michel's corpse is nowhere to be found when the pool is drained. Afterwards, the suit that Michel had been wearing when they drowned him is returned from the dry cleaners. When the proprietor of the dry cleaners also returns a key to a room in a nearby hotel that was with the clothes, Christina goes to the room. There, the cleaning man tells her that Michel had kept the room for awhile but was rarely if ever seen and stored nothing there.
Nicole sees in the newspaper that the police have found the corpse in the Seine. However, when Christina goes to the morgue, she finds it is not actually Michel's body. There, she meets Alfred Fichet, a retired senior policeman now working as a private detective. He becomes involved in the case, much to Nicole's chagrin.
Christina, Nicole and other teachers find a student who claims that Michel has ordered him to rake leaves as punishment for breaking a window. Accusing him of lying, Christina confiscates his slingshot. Under the stress, Christina's heart condition worsens, and her doctors fear she may die soon unless she maintains strict bed rest. When the school photograph is taken, the result seems to show Michel's spectral figure in the window behind the students. Unnerved, Nicole leaves the school; she asks Christina to accompany her, but she is too ill and afraid.
Christina, overcome by fear, confesses everything to Alfred. He does not believe her, but he investigates the pool. That night, Christina hears noises and wanders around the school. When she realizes that someone is following her, she runs back to her room. There, she finds Michel's corpse submerged in the bathtub, which is filled with water. Michel rises from the tub, and Christina suffers a fatal heart attack. Michel and Nicole have set up Christina from the beginning, with Michel acting as a vengeful ghost to scare Christina to death. However, Alfred hears their celebration and figures out everything, telling them they will be sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison, depending on the judge.
The school is closed in the wake of the scandal. As the children and teachers leave, the same boy who had earlier broken a window breaks another. When asked how he recovered his slingshot, the boy says that Christina gave it to him.
Cast
Simone Signoret as Nicole Horner
Véra Clouzot as Christina Delassalle
Paul Meurisse as Michel Delassalle
Charles Vanel as Alfred Fichet
Jean Brochard as Plantiveau
Thérèse Dorny as Mme Herboux
Michel Serrault as M. Raymond
Georges Chamarat as Dr. Loisy
Robert Dalban as the gas station attendant
Camille Guérini as the photographe
Jacques Hilling as the employee of the forensic institute
Jean Lefebvre as the soldier
Aminda Montserrat as Mme Plantiveau
Jean Témerson as the hotel waiter
Jacques Varennes as M. Bridoux
Georges Poujouly as Soudieu
Noël Roquevert as M. Herboux
Pierre Larquey as M. Drain
Johnny Hallyday as a student (uncredited)
Madeleine Suffel as the degreaser (uncredited)
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