The wife and the mistress of a headmaster pool their resources to scotch his wicked antics, pull the plug on his mathematics, but the corpse does a runner and tensions arise, as events unfold with increasing surprise, a basket case, a zombie face, a cracking French facade, what a spectacularly original and engrossing film to devise!

Hitchcock must have forever wondered how he managed to allow this story to slip out of his hands, but the fact remains: had he filmed CELLE QUI N'ETAIT PAS into his own version of what is known as LES DIABOLIQUES, there very well might not have been a VERTIGO, also an adaptation from the authors of the aforementioned one and D'ENTRE LES MORTES. All in all, this is an excellent horror film that has strong Film Noir overtones and precedes New Wave by a couple of years and its simple yet powerful direction by Jean Georges-Clouzot elevates it from a standard thriller to one to which all others are measured spawning countless imitations with much less satisfying degree. One wonders what treatment Hitchcock would have given it, and interestingly, it's all here: the almost casual presentation of spousal abuse that occurs off-camera in one chilling scene early on, the events that lead the women (Vera Clouzot and Simone Signoret) to make a drastic decision concerning killing Clouzot's husband (Michel DelaSalle),and then the growing, deadly certainty he may not be quite dead after all... and may be after the terrified women. The last 15 minutes are one of the most tension-inducing I've ever seen in any climactic montage (even if it does veer into a certain implausibility but the intent is to tell a suspense story and Hitchcock has often mentioned the "suspension of disbelief" factor) and have long gone into history as one of the most horrific moments in cinema.

To those interested in watching LES DIABOLIQUES, please do NOT watch its American remake, DIABOLIQUE, with Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani. It pays to read the subtitles in this film.

I loved this movie so much! This is because I rarely have had a movie throw so many surprises and twists into the plot! Movies too often doing the conventional and expected is one of the reasons I like to watch a lot of foreign films and this one takes the cake! The film is a "noirish" suspense film about two women who want to kill the same man. One is the wife and the other is his mistress. They both meet and agree to kill him together! That alone makes this an interesting twist! What they exactly do and the twists that occur I don't want to discuss, as it would really ruin the movie! Just believe me that the acting, writing and directing couldn't be better and when it was over, I was more than satisfied!