What else happened this year? In 1955.... Einstein died. There was probably a lot of jostling for position in Europe too... Other than that... I don't know [I was right. twice].
What is the plot - in one sentence? In France, the weak-willed wife and the strong-willed mistress team up to kill the man they share.
I don't have time, just spoil it for me? They kill him, but his body goes missing. In the end it turns out that the mistress and the husband had plotted against the wife, and they work to frighten the poor dear to death (she has congenital-heart-problems-itis). This will lead to them being together, and gaining her inheritance. It almost works,... as they do force a heart attack, but a convenient policeman overhears them and they're arrested.
What is the meaning of the title? We assume that the 'Diaboliques' (devils, scoundrels) are the two women, but in the end it turns out to be the mistress and the husband. Very clever.
Anything that's not aged well? Does a woman get slapped around? Does she ever! The wife is slapped around and raped, and the guy who does it still can count on her staying married to him, and on his mistress. The husband is a real dick, it's long overdue when he 'dies' - and a bit disappointing when he doesn't - is he co-ercing the mistress into it too? Let's say... no. Also of note is this tells you not to spoil the story for your mates, which is a pretty canny marketing gimmick, as the end was pretty surprising.
Any thoughts? OK, so the three main characters all work in a school. It's owned by the wife, who can't divorce her husband because of her religion. He openly keeps a mistress, the other female teacher in the school. The result is that the three of them all work there teachers, while other teachers are aware of their situation, and seem to be not too bothered. Only in France huh?
The kids of the school play only an incidental role: one meets the 'corpse,' in a conversation that is told to us but not shown, one swims underwater where we're made to think he will find a corpse, but he doesn't. They're not that important in any way other than showing how the two women interact in the movie: the mistress is a disciplinarian, the wife a little more tolerant of kids.
The ending involves the 'dead' husband appearing to rise, zombie-like from a bath - he'd been 'drowned' before by the two women. He slowly rises from the bath in what is probably the horror climax of the movie. Right as I was watching this, in bed, my cat jumped up on my chest from behind. I nearly soiled myself. You could also rightly wonder why the husband put on 'dead' eye contacts, I think it wouldn't seal the deal to make the wife die of fright if his eyes were normal or not, but we still get a gross looking shot of him taking his contacts out.
Structurally it's pretty interesting. He's 'dead' after 40 minutes, the rest of the time is spent on the cover-up, the search for the body, and the 'haunting' of the school by his ghost. There are a lot of misdirects and red herrings, and I'm pretty sure that they wouldn't hold up to second views, but the first one was fine.
Would you recommend this? Yeah, I would. I had managed to keep it unspoiled, and it was a nice surprise - I just hope some bozo didn't spoil it for you first.
Final thoughts? They 'scare' a woman to death by pretending to be the ghost of her old husband, and the other turns some lights off to get her riled up. After they celebrate, the policeman acts as though he has caught them with bloody axes or something, but my legal knowledge would say that it would be very difficult to prove in a court of law. The detective telling them that they were caught seemed a huge studio add-on.
Also of note is that when she's being chased and terrified, she's wearing almost nothing. I really miss being in a place you can slink around almost naked and not worry people. I'm in Scotland now, even if people didn't mind, it would be too cold.
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoy being naked in the warmth, if you want more (year-by-year movie thoughts, not nudity), you should click right here for all of them.
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