Nicole (Simone Signoret) and Christina (Véra Clouzot) are both teachers at a boarding school. The head of the school, Michel Delassalle (Paul Meurisse), not only is married to cool-mannered Christina, but is also involved in a covert affair with Nicole. When the two women both become fed up with his tyrannical behaviour, they decide to drown him in a bathtub. They then dump his corpse in the school swimming pool. Yet when the pool is drained a few days later, his body has disappeared ….

Director Henri-Georges Clouzot based his movie on the novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Just before Alfred Hitchcock managed to make an offer, Clouzot successfully purchased the film rights. The same two authors would later write D’entre les Morts, tailoring it to Hitchcock’s taste, with the latter ultimately shooting it as Vertigo.

In courtesy of Institut Français Groningen