TCM showed Diabolique
yesterday as part of their “Essentials” series. I remember it especially well,
since I’ve wanted to record it for a while, and I checked my cable guide to see
if anything good was going to be on TCM this weekend, but they said not, and so
I randomly turned on the TV to find Diabolique two-thirds of the way over on TCM Saturday evening.
(#@$%&!) So anyway, I did manage to see the famous bathtub scene, and after
seeing it, it gave me an idea, and I’m pretty sure this is right.
I think we’ve all heard plenty about Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, and why it was shot in black & white, etc.
Supposedly, Hitchcock wanted to see if he could use the methods of one William
Castle (who was doing huge business with low budgets and silly stories) and
outdo him by miles. The result was Psycho, shot in black & white with his TV crew, and based upon a
sensational novel by Robert Bloch.
But there’s more to this story, I think. (Apart from the
struggles at Paramount, I mean.) Alfred Hitchcock very much wanted to make the
movie Diabolique himself (based on a
novel called Celle qui n’était plus:
She Who Was No More in English),
but someone else had beaten him to the punch for the film rights: one
Henri-Georges Clouzot. So Hitchcock immediately grabbed the film rights to
another novel by the same guys (Boileau-Narcejac): D’entre les Morts, which became Vertigo, and he made that instead. But Diabolique was huge, collassal, stupendous, terrific, etc., and
I believe this stuck in Hitchcock’s craw, because Henri-Georges Clouzot was his
big international rival for that “Master of Suspense” title, and to be fair,
they were both contenders for it.
In any case, Diabolique
was shot in black & white, and it was a crackerjack suspense/horror film,
culminating in an unforgettable climax involving a horrific scene in a bathtub.
Well, this was surely the talk of many hoity-toity film snob circles, and it’s
my belief that Hitchcock was bothered by this scene having such a huge impact,
and he wanted very much to be able to outdo this scene in such a crushingly
dominating way that he would forever wash away Clouzot’s triumph by outshining
it on its own terms.
And here enters our story one Robert Bloch, a horror writer
with dreams of movie stardust, and I believe he, realizing that Clouzot’s movie
was a smash, and knowing Hitchcock had wanted to make it, conceived of a story
which would show Alfred Hitchcock a way to outdo Clouzot’s famously horrific
bathtub scene: with a shower scene, no less! And I think Bloch saw this as his
ticket to Hollywood: provide the master with a way to beat his rival, and then
he could write his own ticket. And as it happened, Bloch spent the rest of his
life writing for TV and movies, and then writing about that.
Now, a lot has been written about why Hitchcock went all-out
on the shower scene in Psycho, and why Psycho was made in black & white,
but I believe, although this is all conjecture on my part, that this is because
he wanted to outdo Diabolique’s bathtub scene with such amazing finesse and
technical wizardry, not to mention shock value, that people would speak of it
so much, that Diabolique’s bathtub scene
would become relatively forgotten in its wake. Now it’s also true that it’s in
black & white to save money, to play against Willian Castle, etc., but did
Alfred Hitchcock really want to compete with William Castle? To me, that’s
ridiculous. No, I believe that while Psycho had to be B&W because of the
blood and gore in 1960, it was also because Hitchcock wanted to beat Clouzot’s Diabolique on its own terms, and using the same palette, as it were.
You see, I think Hitchcock wanted to beat Diabolique for shock and stuff, in the same type of bathing
environment, and do it also in black & white, so nobody could then say:
“Well, of course Psycho is
better: it’s in color, and Diabolique is in black & white!” And I think I've rarely heard Hitchcock mention
the parallel between Diabolique
and Psycho because he didn’t want
people to compare them, so much as he wanted to nail the coffin lid down on Diabolique’s impact by nudging it out of everyone’s mind as
much as possible. In other words, Hitchcock was tired of hearing about the
great Diabolique bathtub scene,
and he sought to erase it from all future discussion with his even greater Psycho shower scene. And while I haven’t a shred of real
proof, this is what I believe to be the case here.
I have read many, many (perhaps hundreds of) film books, but
I’ve never seen anyone raise this specific comparison or motivation before (at least not that I recall; although to be fair, most of my movie books are old, and they're mostly about horror movies, and not Hitchcock specifically, so maybe I’ve missed it). But it’s hard for me to believe someone hasn’t made this point before. Anyway, watch both movies for
yourself, and I think you’ll agree: the shower scene in Psycho was
intentionally created to outdo the bathtub scene in Diabolique. And especially when you consider that Diabolique was made in 1955, Psycho (the novel) was written in 1959, and made into a
film in 1960, it’s hard to think it’s not related. Just go watch them and see
if you don’t agree.
(BTW: One of my cable movie channels decided to show a whole
day marathon of Psycho for Mother’s Day. How sweet, right? I guess they’re trying to say
that we should all be so devoted to our mothers as Norman Bates! {Ree! Ree!
Ree! Ree!}
Oh, and another related note: The heroine of the movie Diabolique was Henri-Georges Clouzot’s wife, who died at the
young age of 46 from: a heart attack (!!): the same thing she died from in the
movie Diabolique! To me, that’s
as big of a coincidence as if Janet Leigh had been stabbed to death in the
shower in real life. Pretty odd, huh? Apparently, it made quite a splash with
publicity, but sadly, like any normal man who loves his wife, Clouzot was
crushed by the loss of his wife and fell into a despondent depression, making
only a small handful of films before his death 17 years later.)
So… Did Hitchcock really outdo Diabolique with Psycho, and which is the better movie? Well, honestly, who am I to tell you
something like that? You’ve just got to see them both and make up your own
mind. But since you asked nicely, I will tell you that I think they’re both
great, perhaps even perfect movies, and I’d say they’re about even. But I dare
say Hitchcock managed to knock Diabolique out of the converation for a while,
and I’ll bet that was his main personal aim with Psycho, even if he never
admitted as much.
Hugely successful men have enormous egos, and they don’t
like being bettered at anything. Hitchcock, with the vast resources at his
disposal (especially when compared to the relative paucity of resources at
Clouzot’s), was pretty much capable of doing whatever he wanted. But ask
yourself this: What makes more sense to you? That Hitchcock wanted to see if he
could succeed where William Castle was already making a killing with sub-par
fare (although I love his stuff: no insult to him you understand!), or that
Hitchcock wanted to beat his real rival’s (that is, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s)
best movie on its own terms (that being in black & white, and with a
sensationalistic horror/mystery/suspense tale), and using the same level of
playing field on which to do so?
Well, knowing great men as I do (although not being one
myself), I’d have to say it’s pretty clear if you look at the time period we’re
talking about. And if I’m right, then Hitchcock would have had to use a TV crew
in B&W on a pulp novel story to outdo Diabolique to his own satisfaction.
And I seriously doubt he even wanted anyone else to realize what competition he
was engaged in. And that’s why he said it was against William Castle: to
distract everyone from his real aim, just in case anyone thought he had missed
the mark. (Which apparently, some did: Psycho received scathing reviews until it cleaned-up at the box office,
whereupon it was reappraised. No such ignominious treatment was ever savaged
upon Diabolique.) And I believe
this is perhaps why I have never seen my point here mentioned anywhere else:
there are a lot of Hitchcock fans out there who would never like to see him
bettered in any way whatsoever, so it’s easier to leave this possible link out
of their (justifiably) flattering coverage.
