10 Things You Didn't Know About Alfred Hitchcock

6. He Wanted to Direct the Film Les Diaboliques

The 1955 french film, Les Diaboliques, was based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, titled Celle qui n'était plus (She Who Was No More). Hitchcock had read the novel and wanted to buy the rights to it. Henri-Georges Clouzot reportedly beat Hitchcock by a few hours in buying the rights. There has been speculation Hitchcock didn't pay much to secure rights to novels or short stories, which may have resulted in him not getting the rights for the novel. In a strange twist of fate, Boileau and Narcejac would go on to write another novel, D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead), which Hitchcock bought the rights to and which eventually became Vertigo, the film widely seen as Hitchcock's masterpiece.