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Diaboliquement vôtre
1968 Thriller
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Credits
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Director: Julien Duvivier
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Script: Jean Bolvary, Julien Duvivier, Paul Gégauff, Roland Girard, Louis Thomas
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Photo: Henri Decae
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Music: François de Roubaix
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Cast: Alain Delon (Pierre Lagrange / Georges
Campo),
Senta Berger (Christiane),
Sergio Fantoni (Freddie),
Albert Augier,
Renate Birgo (L'infirmière),
Albert Daumergue,
Marcel Gassouk,
Georges Montant (Le brigadier),
Peter Mosbacher (Kim),
Claude Piéplu (Le décorateur),
Guy Stranger (L'Arabe)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 93 min
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Aka: Diabolically Yours
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Summary
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...
Review
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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