Editing Les Diaboliques (film) (section)

===Writing===
It was Clouzot's wife Vera who drew his attention to [[She Who Was No More|the Boileau-Narcejac novel]]. Clouzot read it through the night and optioned the rights in the morning.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cinematheque.fr/article/1112.html|title=Histoire orale : le tournage des " Diaboliques " de Clouzot raconté par ceux qui l'ont vécu - La Cinémathèque française|website=www.cinematheque.fr|access-date=2019-11-19}}</ref> He and his brother Jean (who took the pseudonym Jérôme Géronimi)<ref name=":1" /> spent 18 months adapting the novel. In the book, the action takes place between [[Enghien-les-Bains]] and [[Nantes]] but Clouzot transposed it to [[Saint-Cloud]] and [[Niort]], his own birthplace.<ref name=":1" /> He wasn't particularly interested in the insurance scam that was the criminal motive in the book. He switched the gender of the murderers and invented the private-school setting.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Le cinéma policier français|last=Guérif|first=François|year=1986|publisher=Artefact|isbn=2851994034|page=113|oclc=489779740}}</ref> Susan Hayward suggests that the gender switch made by Clouzot was caused not so much by censorship considerations (in the source novel, Lucienne and Mireille turn out to be a pair of lesbian lovers), but by his desire to create a sizeable role for his wife.{{sfn|Hayward|2005|p=15}} The book has only one principal female character, Lucienne, since the supposed victim, Mireille disappears early on. Vera with her distinctly feminine demeanor was ill-suited for the role of Lucienne (called Nicole in the film). So in Clouzot's script, Mireille (now named Christina) is the one who has a weak heart, and is the object of manipulation of her husband Michel and his mistress Nicole. Clouzot also followed the convention that the culprits should be exposed by the detective in the end (another departure from the novel where the authors let them get away).<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/frenchfilmnoir0000buss_n0r7/page/24/mode/2up|title=French Film Noir|last=Buss|first=Robin|date=2001|publisher=[[Marion Boyars Publishers|Marion Boyars]]|isbn=0-7145-3036-0|location=London|page=24|oclc=44652477|url-access=registration}}</ref>