'DIABOLIQUE' LOSES FRENCH TOUCH.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

The original French "Diabolique" may not be the film classic some say it is. But Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1955 thriller certainly had its elegant touches, among them Simone Signoret's harsh-but-human tough cookie, a folksy detective who was the prototype for TV's Columbo and an eerie atmosphere that built up to some truly wracking moments.

Elegance of this sort is noticeably absent from the new American remake of "Diabolique." Sharon Stone, in the Signoret role of a boarding school headmaster's mistress who helps his sickly wife murder the creep, is all crass one-liners and too-tight clothes. The deceptively relentless detective is now played by Kathy Bates as a male-bashing pessimist who keeps calling attention to her recent mastectomy.

And try as he might, with inclement weather and disorienting camera angles and even some exact replicas of the original film's indelible shock effects, director Jeremiah Chechik ("Benny & Joon") fails to stir up much suspense. Whether or not viewers are familiar with the story's numerous twists and triple-crosses, this is the kind of material that should keep guts churning. The result here is more like minds wandering.

Everyone - students, faculty, betrayed wife - at western Pennsylvania's St. Anselm School for Boys knows that the sadistic boss, Guy Baran (Chazz Palminteri), is carrying on with Stone's sexpot math teacher, Nicole. Though Guy is a cruel and despised dude - he actually enjoys watching people eat creamed chip beef on toast for lunch - his wife, Mia (Isabelle Adjani), is no picnic, either. She's a former nun with a heart condition who, everyone assumes, is not the most satisfying lover.

For reasons that get murkier the more they're overexplained, Nicole and Mia drug Guy, drown him in a bathtub, then dump his corpse in the school's weed-clogged swimming pool. When the pool is drained a few days later, no Guy. As hints that he may still be alive increase, Nicole grows even more brittle than usual, Mia wavers between Catholic guilt and a steely new self-possession, and Bates' Shirley tries to further her investigation by agreeing with the conspirators that men are all creeps.

Some insistent but inconclusive hints of lesbianism are thrown in for fun, but they're as disconnectedly unconvincing as Nicole's dialogue, which runs to lines like "I'll be in a better mood Tuesday" and "You're dead, this is heaven, and I'm the Virgin Mary" ("Single White Female's" Don Roos wrote the screenplay).

There is one light that shines through all of this dreary, pat drudgery, however. Adjani, always a memorable presence in her French films, is enchantingly watchable in her biggest English-language role to date. The actress brilliantly allows her doll-like delicacy to evoke Mia's vulnerability while concentrating her talents on particularizing the woman's many inner conflicts. While Stone comes off just, well, hard, Adjani gives us emotional quicksilver - which, as she never lets us forget, is a kind of metal, too.

Adjani's work does not save "Diabolique," but it more than preserves her dignity. Ah, the French - maybe we should just leave elegance to the experts, non?

THE FACTS

The film: "Diabolique" (R; violence, nudity, sex, drugs, language).

The stars: Sharon Stone, Isabelle Adjani, Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jeremiah Chechik. Written by Don Roos, based on the film by Henri-Georges Clouzot and the novel "Celle Qui N'Etait Plus" by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejec. Produced by Marvin Worth and James G. Robinson. Released by Warner Bros.

Running time: One hour, 47 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two stars

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PHOTO

Photo Sharon Stone, left, and Isabelle Adjani portray, respectively, a headmaster's mistress and his ailing wife who conspire to murder him in "Diabolique."