Clouzot has been endlessly accused of cruelly manipulating both his characters and audience because of his wildly successful suspense classic, Les Diaboliques, a work of audacious trickery that entirely reinvented the rules for mystery cinema. Clouzot once again cast a jaundiced eye upon marriage, here in the story of scandalous love triangle between a tyrannical prep school headmaster, played with steely derision by Paul Meurisse, and two women teaching at his school – Simone Signoret's brooding history instructor and his long-suffering wife, played, ironically, by Mrs. Vera Clouzot. Alfred Hitchcock zealously pursued the source novel of Les Diaboliques by the famed mystery writing team, Boileau and Narcejac, only to be beaten by Clouzot who adopted the book into a film that inspired many important aspects of Psycho, made five years later, including Hitchcock's "Don't reveal the ending!" campaign which was closely modeled on the cunning marketing strategy that propelled Clouzot's picture into an international box office sensation.