Woman Watching Louise de Kiriline Abk

They say the old woods are haunted. If anyone dares to go through them at night, they will be killed. At night you can hear the screams as if it is a woman crying. Could the one who is committing these horrible murders be the old woman crying in the night?

Elvira is travelling through the French countryside with her friend Genevieve, searching for the lost tomb of a medieval murderess and possible vampire, Countess Wandessa. They find a likely site in the castle of Waldemar Daninsky, who invites the women to stay as long as they like. As Waldemar shows Elvira the tomb that supposedly houses the countess, she accidentally causes the vampire to come back to life, hungrier than ever. Daninsky has a hidden secret of his own, but will it be enough to save the two girls from becoming Wandessa's next victims?

French master Max Ophuls’s most cherished work, "The Earrings of Madame de…" is an emotionally profound, cinematographically adventurous tale of false opulence and tragic romance. When the aristocratic woman known only as Madame de (the extraordinary Danielle Darrieux) sells her earrings, unbeknownst to her husband (Charles Boyer), in order to pay personal debts, she sets off a chain reaction, the financial and carnal consequences of which can only end in despair. Ophuls adapts Louise de Vilmorin’s incisive fin de siècle novel with virtuosic camera work so elegant and precise it’s been called the equal to that of Orson Welles.

Criterion Collection

The best film from the three Max Ophuls classics Criterion is "Madame de…" (1953), one of the greatest films ever made, and one of the most written about.

Dave Kehr, New York Times