DIABOLIQUE
Sunday, October 24th at 1:00 p.m. and
Tuesday, October 26th at 7:00 p.m.
FREE ADMISSION
**Suggested donation: $5.00**
ESSENTIAL CINEMA is The Loft's FREE monthly series of classic art films on the big screen. See old favorites, hidden gems and exciting re-discoveries the way they were meant to be seen - with an audience and on the big screen in glorious 35 mm!
“MALICIOUSLY INGENIOUS.” – Terrence Rafferty, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“EXCRUCIATINGLY NERVE-WRECKING. Could serve as a primer for today's would-be horror meisters.” – Elena Oumano, VILLAGE VOICE
“BRILLIANT! No matter how many times you've seen it, DIABOLIQUE still has one of the all-time great endings.” – Caryn James, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A MURKY, MOODY MASTERPIECE ... Part ghost story, part murder thriller, part menage-a-trois drama.” – Stephen Witty, THE NEWARK STAR-LEDGER
"The Great Suspense Film That Shocked the World... And Became A Classic."
Prior to Hitchcock's PSYCHO in 1960, this fiendish French suspense classic by screenwriter-director Henri-Georges Clouzot was considered the most frightening and artistic horror picture ever made. Hitchcock admitted an artistic debt to Clouzot in many ways, including borrowing his practice of insisting that no one be admitted to the theater once the film began.
Brilliantly adapted from the source novel CELLE QUI N'ETAIT PLUS ("She Who Was No More") by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac (who also penned the source novel for Hitchcock's VERTIGO), the setting is a provincial boys school. The school is run by the dictatorial Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse) and his downtrodden wife, Christina (played by the director's real-life wife, Vera Clouzot), who has a heart condition. Conveniently, if she dies the school will belong to him. The nasty Delassalle is also openly having an affair with a blonde-bombshell teacher, Nicole (French film superstar Simone Signoret), and has taken to beating his wife, as well. Banding together in sisterly unity, the wife and the mistress plot to murder Delassalle, leading to nerve-wracking suspense, dizzying plot twists, disappearing corpses and an eyeball-glazing dénouement involving cinema's most terror-filled bathtub - a nightmarish kicker of an ending that shocked audiences all over the world.
Deftly whipping up a suffocating atmosphere of malice, dread and kinky intrigue, Clouzot's twisted gem proved to be a much-imitated but never-topped influence on future generations of thriller directors, and served as the basis for a great Hollywood anecdote:
A man wrote to Alfred Hitchcock: "Sir, After seeing `Diabolique,' my daughter was afraid to take a bath. Now she has seen your `Psycho' and is afraid to take a shower. What should I do with her?" Hitchcock replied: "Send her to the dry cleaners."