"The setting is a French provincial school for boys; the headmaster's wife (Vera Clouzot) and mistress (Simone Signoret) conspire to murder him. It sounds simple, but the characters seem fearfully knowing, and there are undertones of strange, tainted pleasures and punishments. According to the director, Clouzot, 'I sought only to amuse myself and the little child who sleeps in all our hearts-the child who hides her head under the bedcovers and begs, "Daddy, Daddy, frighten me."' Clouzot does it, all right; his Grand Guignol techniques are so calculatedly grisly that they seem silly, yet they succeed in making one feel queasy and sordid and scared..." -Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies