All Slights Deserved

I'll be the first to admit that when it comes to my film viewing habits I'm a bit of a snob. In the early years I was inclined to seek out the critically acclaimed rather than populist cinema, and although my tastes expanded to include more idiosyncratic material as a rule it's tended to be haute cuisine over meat and potatoes. The drawback of this philosophy is one grows so accustomed to the good stuff it's not always possible to appreciate the value of what you're watching relative to the bigger picture. I suspect this may be why the work of French writer/director Henri-Georges Clouzot has failed to capture me. Clouzot is best remembered for the high-tension truck adventure Wages of Fear and seminal psychological thriller Les Diaboliques ; neither of which which lived up to their reputation. Strangely enough I prefer some of the Hammer studio's shameless rip-offs of Les Diaboliques , such as Scream of Fear , to the original. Seen retrospectively Clouzot...