French postcard by Centre Pompidou for the exhibition 'Fantômas et compagnie', 24 April - 27 May 2002.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 1 of 6.
The plot of the card: It is early in the morning. Princess Sonia Danidoff (Jane Faber) returns to her hotel room at the Royal Palace Hotel. She holds an envelope with 120.000 francs.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 2 of 6.
With a fake beard, Fantômas (René Navarre) observes Princess Danidoff (Jane Faber) in her hotel suite. He will rob her of her pearls and money and leave her a business card that only afterwards reveals its name: Fantômas.
A sensational success
Léon Gaumont acquired the film rights of the Fantômas novels by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain in 1913 for 6,000 francs. He commissioned director Louis Feuillade with the realisation. This film adaptation, Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), was a sensational success. It made René Navarre, who played the title role, overnight a star.
As the magazine, Le Petit Journal wrote, the first part 'Fantômas. A l'ombre de la guillotine' attracted 80,000 cinema-goers to the Gaumont Palace, which was the largest cinema in the world with 3,400 seats.
Critics attributed this partly to the popularity of the so-called Bonnot Gang, a group of anarchists who shook France and Belgium with their spectacular robberies in 1911-1912 and whose modern equipment including automatic rifles and automobiles made them far superior to the police forces.
The technical arms race between the Fantômas' gang and the Paris Sûreté such as surveillance techniques, biometrics, and the use of getaway cars, actually plays an essential role in the series.
But more abstract reasons for the fascination with which the series was received are also cited.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 3 of 6.
Inspector Juve (Edmund Bréon) confronts Lady Beltham, Fantômas' mistress (Renée Carl). After the theft, Inspector Juve pays a visit to Lady Beltham. Finding a name in an address book, he asks: Who is Mr. Gurn? She tells Fantomas afterwards, who sends three suitcases to Johannesburg. Juve discovers in one of the suitcases the corps of Lord Beltham. He discovers Gurn is Fantomas.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 4 of 6.
On his knees, Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon). When Gurn alias Fantômas (René Navarre) exits his house, Juve and his police arrest Fantômas. Six months after he is condemned to death. Lady Beltham reads the news and is shocked.
Crime as art
American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum: "Probably more to the point are the notions of crime as art and art as metaphysics that inspired such poets as Robert Desnos and Jacques Prévert, whereby cop and crook become periodically interchangeable and staid appearances deceive almost by definition, providing the early template for Feuillade's master serials."
In particular, the relationship between law enforcement officers and criminals or citizens, with its political implications, makes Louis Feuillade so modern.
German film scholar Thomas Brandlmeier: "Inspector Juve and the anarcho-breaker Fantômas are the classic schizophrenic pair of state citizen and private citizen. The journalist Fandor, the justice fanatic with the quill pen, acts as the paranoid petit bourgeois around whom the wild mummery rages.'
After the first episode, Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), four sequels followed: Fantômas II: Juve contre Fantômas/Juve Against Fantomas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), Fantomas III: Le mort qui tue/Fantômas: The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913), Fantômas IV: Fantômas contre Fantômas/Fantomas Against Fantomas (Louis Feuillade, 1914), and Fantômas V: Le faux magistrat/Fantômas: The False Magistrate (Louis Feuillade, 1914).
The series consists of five episodes, each an hour to an hour and a half in length, which end in cliffhangers. Episodes one and three end with Fantômas making a last-minute escape, and the end of the second entry has Fantômas blowing up Lady Beltham's manor house with Juve and Fandor, the two heroes, still inside. The subsequent episodes begin with a recap of the story that has gone before. Each film is further divided into three or more chapters that do not end in cliffhangers.
The five episodes, initially released throughout 1913–1914, were restored under the direction of Jacques Champreaux and released in this new form in 2006. The entire first episode, possibly with some gaps. can be watched on the Wikipedia page dedicated to the serial.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 5 of 6.
When the guard Nibet (Naudier) makes his nightly round at the Santé prison he is bribed by Lady Beltham to give Fantomas (René Navarre) a letter. Fantômas gives him her address, promising him to make him rich. Lady Beltham indeed loads Nibet with money if he will help her see Fantômas once more.
Spanish minicard series by Reclam Films, Mallorca. Photo: Gaumont. Publicity still for Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913), First episode, card 6 of 6.
The famous actor Valgrand (André Volbert) has copied for his show the head and outfit of the soon to be decapitated Gurn/Fantomas (René Navarre). After his stage show, he receives a letter from an unknown woman. It is Lady Beltham (René Carl), who invites him to come to her in his attire for the show. She has rented a room opposite the prison. With the help of Nibet (Naudier) and his colleague, Fantomas is secretly freed (the guards think only for a short rendezvous). But Lady Beltham drugs the actor, who is then put in prison instead of Fantomas. The guillotine is built, and Valgrand is about to be killed to Lady Beltham's horror. But Juve just in time unmasks the fake Fantomas as Valgrand. Juve now only has one obsession: to recapture Fantomas.
Sources: Wikipedia (English and German), and IMDb.
And Happy Birthday, Ivo!
No comments:
Post a Comment