Les Diaboliques
aka Diabolique, The Devils, The Fiends,
directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot,
written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme
Géronimi, René Masson and Frédéric Grendel,
based on the novel She Who Was
No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac,
was released in France on
January 29, 1955.
Music by Georges Van
Parys.
Cast:
Simone Signoret, Véra
Clouzot, Paul Meurisse, Charles Vanel, Jean Brochard, Thérèse Dorny, Michel
Serrault, Georges Chamarat, Robert Dalban, Camille Guérini, Jacques Hilling,
Jean Lefebvre, Aminda Montserrat, Jean Témerson, Jacques Varennes, Georges Poujouly,
Yves-Marie Maurin, Noël Roquevert, Pierre Larquey, Jean-Pierre Bonnefous, Christian
Brocard, Jean Clarieux, Henri Coutet, Michel Dumur, Johnny Hallyday, Henri
Humbert, Zappy Max, Roberto Rodrigo, Madeleine Suffel, Jimmy Urbain.
Recommended reading:
She Who Was No More
By Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.
Filmed as Les Diaboliques, a.k.a. Diabolique, The Devils, The Fiends (1955), directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot.
ASIN: B00TNBPJ9O
Published by Pushkin Vertigo.
English language translation edition 2015.
Published 2015.
First published 1951.
Description:
Every Saturday evening, travelling salesman Ferdinand Ravinel returns to his wife, Mireille, who waits patiently for him at home. But Ferdinand has another lover, Lucienne – an ambitious doctor – and together the adulterers have devised a murderous plan.
Drugging Mireille, the pair drown her in a bathtub. But before the "accidental" death can be discovered, the corpse mysteriously disappears. So begins the unraveling of Ferdinand's plot, and his sanity.
This classic of French noir fiction was adapted for the screen by Henri-Georges Clouzot as Les Diaboliques (The Devils; The Fiends), starring Simone Signoret and Véra Clouzot, the film which in turn inspired Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. A second movie version, Diabolique, followed in 1996, starring Sharon Stone.