My mother had been a movie buff all her life. She knew all the films, the
stars and less-than-stars. Often she'd pick my brother and me up after
school to take us to a movie before getting home in time fix dinner for
dad and us.

In the mid-50's, my brother, Jack, and I were in our early teens. Having
been introduced by Mom into a lifestyle that included movies as natural a
pastime as eating and sleeping, we spent a lot of time in theaters either
together or separately.

Movie production was running high at the time in an effort to combat the
insurgence of television into the entertainment market. And the quality of

films increased with the number of productions. Stories were more
intelligent, acting was noticeably superior and the production values
greatly improved--obvious to even we teenagers.

About the same time there was an influx of what we called "foreign films."

Most were from Italy and France, but some I remember came from India and
Japan. They were different in that they were mostly in black-and-white, but

also in that they often showed a side of life that we didn't see all that
often in American films. They showed a seedier, darker, more "back-street"

way of living. "Film-noir," some later came to be known.

Jack wasn't particularly interested in that style of film, but I was and
would seek them out on my own. Which is how I found the French film,
"Diabolique." It was released in 1955, and had a French cast I'd never
heard of, including Simone Signoret who I still think of as having the
sexiest eyes I'd ever seen.

Billed as a scary movie, it was just the type of film I knew I'd enjoy. It

wasn't of the "horror" genre, the Godzilla-types hadn't been born yet, but

of the true psychological terror-types. I, having been a horror-comic
aficionado since I was old enough to read, was eager to see the film.

The movie stunned me. It was filled with every gimmick ever thought of to
create suspense: dim lighting, music, enticing dialogue, pauses, and
uncertainty. I loved it, and ran home to tell everyone that it was a must s
ee!

My brother went the same evening and we spent the night talking through the

film time and time again. Then the plot evolved.

Mom hadn't yet seen "Diabolique" and didn't seem all that interested in
"another one of those dark foreign pictures." Jack and I kept talking it up

until, finally, she gave in and agreed to see it the next day.

"What a *terrible* picture," she said to us when we arrived home from
school the following afternoon. "I was afraid to walk home from the movie,

even in broad *daylight*!" She was laughing as she said all this. Mom was a

self-confident, take-charge woman in her thirties at the time. "You rotten

kids, sending me to see something like that."

She obviously loved the picture, too.

"Diabolique" tells of a tyrannical man's wife and mistress (a being rarely

acknowledged as existing in those film years) joining forces to kill him by

drowning him in a pond. Later, they return to their shared home to find the

stubborn man floating in a bathtub, replete with pond lilies and flotsam.
But just for a while. He begins to rise from the tub seeking vengeance.
Fabulous!

As Jack and I had planned, I disappeared for a few minutes before he made
up some excuse for Mom go into the bathroom. She entered, went to the
medicine cabinet, and then turned to see me lying in the tub with my eyes
rolled back in my head (as in the movie). As I grasped the edge of the tub

and began to rise, she let out a shriek.

That broke the spell. Jack, who was hiding outside, and I began to laugh so

hard that Mom caught herself in mid-sit and stared at us open-mouthed. Then

she joined in the laughter, taking time to slap both of us on the back of
our heads for our "very funny" joke.

Had I mentioned that our Mom had a great sense of humor?