Spine 35: Diabolique

Henri-Georges Clouzot has been called the French Alfred Hitchcock, which is really just a Anglo-centric way of saying that if Clouzot had been working in English he'd be more popular (in general? or more than Hitchcock? Yes). We've got two of his best movies in a row starting this week with Diabolique (1955) based on a novel by Pierre Boileau. It's said that Clouzot bought the rights to the novel mere hours before Hitchcock arrived for the same. As a consolation, Hitchcock bought another Boileau novel about a former detective with a fear of heights and his investigation of a woman who should be dead. Vertigo, masterwork that it is, and Psycho, which borrows a bit from Diabolique, don't quite achieve what Clouzot does here.