Claude Chabrol, who died on September 12 aged 80, was one of that group of critics-turned-film-makers who revolutionised French cinema in the late Fifties and came to be known as the "new wave".

Age has not withered Claude Chabrol. Born in 1930, he is a founding father of the French new wave, introducing the style to the movie-going public with 1958’s Le beau Serge. Last year he celebrated a half century at the forefront of European filmmaking, having racked up 71 directing credits over the course of his career – most for the big screen, some for TV.

Claude Chabrol’s The Bridesmaid (La Demoiselle d’Honneur), from a screenplay by Pierre Leccia and Mr. Chabrol, based on the novel by Ruth Rendell, develops a passionate love story amid a creeping malignancy that ultimately engulfs the two lovers.

US press release

Making novels into movies is a tricky business, but it is clear that the British crime writer Ruth Rendell and the French director Claude Chabrol are on the same wavelength.

Rendell and Chabrol brilliantly keep leading us on, into a slowly darkening story of tango dancers and crystalline daggers and quiet shrouded mansions.

In Claude Chabrol’s Film ‘The Bridesmaid,’ a Mama’s Boy Meets a Femme Fatale

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