Catching Ducks

For some reason I saw the 1996 movie Diabolique (sharring Sharon Stone and Chazz Palminteri). It was back in the late 90's, so maybe I saw it when I was in college? Anyway, I knew that it was a remake of an older movie, so I decided to track down the original.

The original movie is French, in black & white, and was released in 1955. (Which means it was filmed just a decade after WWII ended, which is a little weird to think about.) (It also means I'm not going to worry about spoilers.)

There's a cruel man running a school, and his wife and his mistress team up to kill him. A simple plot, but with lots of tension.

I enjoyed the unlikely friendship between the mistress and the wife, which is why I didn't like the ending of the movie, when you discover the mistress faked the murder to kill the wife, so she and the husband could get the wife's money. In retrospect, it makes sense. The mistress was always much more confident about the plan than the wife, and the mistress could have left the school/husband in a way that the wife couldn't. So for her to be faking it to swindle the wife fits. But I was still bummed.

I was quite surprised that the retired police detective was actually a good guy. I just assumed he as a bad guy, possible in league with the husband.

Overall, a creepy thriller.

Labels: review: movie