A personal recollection: 'Life' magazine (only those of a certain vintage will remember Life magazine) came out with a heavy-duty spread on this flick when it was released, hailing it as perhaps the most frightening movie ever made (remember the film industry wasn't as old then as it is today). I was nine years old and I begged and pleaded with my parents to be allowed to see it, to no avail. I did not get a chance to see it until much later in life, when it showed up on television. By then 'Psycho' and its successors had pushed the envelope of screen horror beyond what this film gives us. Still, the movie stands up pretty damn well on the creepiness scale. It is interesting to know that Hitchcock wanted the rights to this, and intriguing to imagine what he would have done with it. It's interesting to note that the film makers were not above providing some comic relief, in the form of the landlord and his wife in the boarding house where the murder takes place. Well worth viewing, in spite of the trouble of reading subtitles.
Review of Diabolique
