20th Century Cube Presents Les Diaboliques
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Thu 11 February 2010 // 20:00
(Thu 11th / 8pm / £4/3)
(Henri-Georges Clouzot / France / 1955 / 111 minutes / Cert 15)
In this tense double-reverse plot thriller, the wife and mistress of a sadistic boarding school headmaster plot to kill him. They drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in the school's filthy swimming pool... but when the pool is drained, the body has disappeared - and subsequent reported sightings of the headmaster slowly drive his 'killers' up the wall with almost unbearable suspense.
It is a foul and fallen world that the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot (who narrowly beat Hitchcock in a race to buy the rights to the original novel), lays out for contemplation. Les Diaboliques is an atmospheric and wonderfully seedy tale of love, hate and death.
(Henri-Georges Clouzot / France / 1955 / 111 minutes / Cert 15)
In this tense double-reverse plot thriller, the wife and mistress of a sadistic boarding school headmaster plot to kill him. They drown him in the bathtub and dump the body in the school's filthy swimming pool... but when the pool is drained, the body has disappeared - and subsequent reported sightings of the headmaster slowly drive his 'killers' up the wall with almost unbearable suspense.
It is a foul and fallen world that the director, Henri-Georges Clouzot (who narrowly beat Hitchcock in a race to buy the rights to the original novel), lays out for contemplation. Les Diaboliques is an atmospheric and wonderfully seedy tale of love, hate and death.