Diabolically Yours

Diabolically Yours (French: Diaboliquement vôtre) is a 1967 thriller film starring Alain Delon and Senta Berger. It was the last film by director Julien Duvivier.[4]

Diabolically Yours
Directed byJulien Duvivier
Screenplay byJulien Duvivier[1]
Based onManie de la persécution
by Louis Thomas
Starring
Music byFrançois de Roubaix[2]
CinematographyHenri Decaë[2]
Edited byPaul Cayatte[2]
Production
companies
  • Les Films Copernic S.A.
  • Lira Films S.A.
  • Comacico S.A.
  • Societé Nouvelle de Cinématographie (S.N.C.)
  • Pegaso Film
  • Igor-Film S.r.l.
  • Eichberg-Film GmbH[2]
Release date
  • 22 December 1967 (1967-12-22) (France)
  • 20 August 1968 (1968-08-20) (West Germany)
Running time
95 minutes[2]
Country
  • France
  • Italy
  • West Germany[2]
Box office836,942 admissions (France)[3]

Plot

Waking from a coma in a private clinic with amnesia, a man is told that he survived a car crash and that he is Georges Campo, a name he does not recognise. A beautiful woman he does not know, who says she is his wife Christiane, takes him to recuperate in a mansion in walled grounds. With her is a doctor, Frédéric Launay, who says he is an old friend from their days in business together in Hong Kong. At the mansion they are greeted by the half-Chinese butler Kim, who is offhand with him but has a suspiciously close relationship with Christiane. He is told that he must rest and take copious medication, while Christiane adds that there is no hope of any marital relations until he is fully well.

Voices start troubling him at night and he suffers nightmares, in one of which he is a coarse soldier called Pierre Lagrange fighting in Algeria. He discovers that he cannot get out of the grounds, that there is no telephone and that he is a prisoner. He suspects attempts on his life: an unsecured trap door opens under him, a large dog attacks him, a chandelier falls on him at dinner.

He realises he cannot be Georges Campo, because only Christiane and Frédéric claim he is, and that Campo must therefore be dead. While Frédéric is away one night, he forces himself on the not wholly unwilling Christiane and at breakfast tells Frédéric. Enraged at her treachery, he starts beating her, upon which the jealous Kim knifes him. She responds by shooting Kim and then confesses the whole plot. She and Frédéric had killed her husband Georges secretly but then needed a public death so they could marry and take over the Hong Kong business. They got the ex-soldier Pierre Lagrange drunk and crashed the car, but he survived. Then they had further attempts at killing him, which failed. Christiane offers to be a wife and business partner to him if he will carry on as Georges Campo. The police, when called to investigate the two deaths, do not believe him however.

Cast

Production

Diabolically Yours was based on the novel Manie de la persécution by Louis Thomas.[1] The novel was adapted by Julien Duvivier, Roland Girard, and Jean Bolvary with dialogue written by Paul Gégauff.[2]

Release

Diabolically Yours was released in France on 22 December 1967 and in West Germany on 20 August 1968.[2]

Reception

The film was a box office failure.[3]

In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "It is a pity that Duvivier's extraordinarily uneven career should have ended with this rather lame thriller."[5] "Mosk." of Variety found the film to be "somewhat oldhat" and "fairly obvious attempt at a psycho thriller"[6]

References
  1. McCann 2017, p. 247.
  2. "Mit teuflischen Grüßen". Filmportal.de. Retrieved 25 March 2018.
  3. Box Office Information for film at Box Office Story
  4. "Director Duvivier, 71, Dies in Paris". Los Angeles Times. Oct 31, 1967. p. c9.
  5. "Diaboliquement Votre (Diabolically Yours)". Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 36 no. 420. 1969. p. 124.
  6. Variety's Film Reviews 1968–1970. 12. R. R. Bowker. 1983. There are no page numbers in this book. This entry is found under the header "January 24, 1968". ISBN 0-8352-2792-8.

Sources
  • McCann, Ben (2017). Julien Duvivier: French Film Director Series. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0719091144.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
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