Adapted by
Jean Cocteau from his own novel and directed by
Jean-Pierre Melville,
Les Enfants Terribles is set in motion when a sensitive youth, Paul (
Edouard Dermit), is injured by a snowball flung by school bully Dargelos (
Renée Cosima, an actress in male drag). The bully later reappears in the form of a young girl, Agathe (played again by
Cosima), with whom Paul becomes infatuated. This arouses the displeasure of Paul's sister, Elisabeth (
Nicole Stephane),
who also harbors a carnal desire for her brother. Elisabeth arranges to
destroy Paul's romance, forcing Agathe to marry another. The sister
gets her comeuppance in a perversely indirect fashion at the hands of
the male bully Dargelos. This film was completed in 1952, but not
released in the U.S. until 1975.
