Diaboliquement vôtre (1968) - film review

After a near-fatal road accident, Georges Campo regains consciousness in hospital, but he has lost his memory.  He fails to recognise his beautiful wife, Christiane, and his friend Freddie Launay.  He soon discovers that he is a wealthy man, with a huge country mansion and a successful business in the Far East.  Freddie attempts to treat Georges’ amnesia by giving him drugs, but Georges begins to suspect that something is wrong.  If he really is Christiane’s husband, why is she so reluctant to sleep with him?  Although Georges can recall some of his recent past in the Orient, he also regains fragments of another life, memories of a man named Pierre Lagrange...

Julien Duvivier ended his long and distinguished film career with this taut psychological thriller, a popular genre and an unashamedly populist kind of film.  Alain Delon, the hottest young actor in France at the time, is cast in the lead role, exploiting his obvious sex appeal and talent for playing tough macho yet sympathetic heroes.

Whilst the plot is a little pedestrian, Duvivier manages to create a compelling work, with strong characters, a well-structured narrative and effective use of suspense.  There are a few embarrassingly bad moments (notably the clichéd-to-death chandelier sequence), and the ending is painfully contrived, but overall the film isn’t a bad parting shot from Julien Duvivier.

It may not be Pépé-le-Moke , but Diaboliquement vôtre is rather a satisfying piece of escapist fun, prettily filmed and with some very dark undercurrents.  The most memorable thing about this film is its opening credit sequence, which shows a dizzying point-of-view shot of someone driving a car at great speed down country lanes before, inevitably, crashing.  Julien Duvivier died in a car accident shortly after the film was completed.

© James Travers 2005

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