Juve versus Fantômas (1913)
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 1. Photo: Gaumont. Fandor (Georges Melchior) and Inspector Juve (Edmund Breaon) in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/ Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). The shootout with the barrels of alcohol takes an ugly turn when the villains set the barrels on fire. Seen on their backs: Fandor and Juve.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 2. Photo: Gaumont. Edmund Breon as Inspector Juve, Georges Melchior as the reporter Fandor and Yvette Andreyor as Joséphine 'la pierreuse' (the hustler) in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/ Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Juve and Fandor meet Joséphine at the fancy ball.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 3. Photo: Gaumont. Renée Carl as Lady Beltham in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Lady Beltham receives a letter from her old lover Gurn aka Fantomas.
Juve versus Fantômas/Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913) opens with shots of the leading actors and their disguises: René Navarre as himself (the actor), Dr. Chaleck (bearded), the gang-leader Loupart (moustache, bowler hat, and cigarette), and the "Man in Black" (the "true visage" of Fantômas...); Edmond Bréon as himself (the actor), Inspector Juve (moustache and bowler hat) and disguised as a businessman (mutton-chop sideburns and dress hat).
The Simplon Express Disaster: In his office, Inspector Juve ponders and signs a report to the Commissioner of Police. Welcoming the journalist Jérôme Fandor, Juve hands him the report, which refers to the discovery of a woman's body, crushed beyond recognition, in the house of Dr. Chaleck. Papers on the body identify it as Lady Beltham, but Juve is skeptical. (In the first Fantômas adventure, the Englishwoman assisted her criminal lover, Gurn (alias Fantômas), in both the murder of her husband, Lord Beltham, and the substitution of the actor Valgrand for the imprisoned Gurn on the eve of the criminal's execution. Juve engages Fandor to help him in the case. Outside on the street, Dr. Chaleck (alias Fantômas) gets into a taxi, shadowed by Juve and Fandor who follow in another cab. But it is the bandit Loupart (another alias of Fantômas) who reemerges from the taxi. Loupart approaches Joséphine-la-Pierreuse, a street prostitute and the bandit's mistress, who passes him a note. Juve and Fandor split up, each pursuing one of the two suspicious characters.
Fantomas & Josephine: Loupart reads the note, which explains that Joséphine will be meeting a courier from a wine merchant at the Gare de Lyon. The courier, holding 150,000 francs, believes that they'll be going on a tryst—of course, he'll be robbed instead. Loupart gets into a cab, but when Juve tries to follow in a second cab, a member of Loupart's gang jumps on the back of the taxi and punctures the rear tire. Juve loses the trail. But Fandor shadows Joséphine more successfully through the Métro [with location shots inside a moving Métro train!] and to her apartment. From a café, Fandor sends off a quick note to Juve. At the Gare de Lyon, Joséphine meets Martialle, the courier. They enter a train compartment, and Fandor follows, taking the neighbouring compartment. Two of Loupart's accomplices stroll the corridor...The train pulls out. Loupart appears in the corridor, encountering Fandor, whom the criminal recognizes.
To make their robbery easier, one of Loupart's men detaches the coach from the rest of the train. Donning black masks, Loupart and his gang rob Martialle at gunpoint (a couple members of his gang rob Fandor at the same time, for good measure and to keep the journalist out of the picture). After the criminals depart, Fandor and Martialle realize that the coach is coasting back down the mountainside and they leap out. In horror, they watch as the next train along the line, the Simplon express, crashes into the loose car. Meanwhile, Loupart and company escape to a waiting car. Joséphine discovers a letter from Martialle's employers among the robbed possessions, explaining that the 150 thousand-franc notes carried by the courier have each been cut in half, with the other halves to be delivered later. Their theft is foiled! But Loupart has a plan. En route by car, he stops at a post office and sends Juve a false telegram from "Fandor" setting a meeting for the wharves near the wine warehouse at 11 pm that night.
At the Bercy Warehouse: Juve receives the telegram, but he is also contacted by the real Fandor, whom Loupart/Fantômas believes has died in the Simplon express crash. Therefore, Juve and Fandor appear in the scene together, prepared for some sort of mischief from Fantômas, but uncertain what form their challenge will take. Juve and Fandor surreptitiously crawl among barrels of spirits stacked along the banks of the Seine near the Bercy warehouse. But, it's an ambush! Loupart/ Fantômas's men, hidden among the barrels, open fire upon the detective and journalist. Then, the bandit's gang set fire to the barrels of liquor, trapping Juve and Fandor. To escape the flames and smoke, the two heroes climb into an empty barrel, roll down into the water, and swim away to safety across the river.
At the Crocodile: Joséphine dines at the elegant Montmartre restaurant "The Crocodile" with a young man who liberally imbibes champagne (and subsequently falls asleep at the table). By a stroke of fortune, Juve and Fandor not only dine at the same restaurant but are seated at the adjoining table. Recognizing Joséphine, Fandor and Juve confront her and demand to know the whereabouts of Loupart/ Chaleck/ Fantômas. Finding herself compromised, the prostitute reveals another coincidence—Dr. Chaleck is dining in the next room! Overjoyed at his luck, Juve dances a little jig with Joséphine... Through the maître d'hôtel, Juve proposes that Chaleck meet him outside the restaurant. Surprisingly, Chaleck/Fantômas accepts. Retrieving his overcoat from the cloakroom, Chaleck steps out of the restaurant and into the hands of Juve and Fandor. The detective and Journalist each firmly secure the arms of Chaleck, when—he bolts free! Stunned, Juve and Fandor discover artificial limbs attached to Chaleck's overcoat—they've been outsmarted by Fantômas once again. The archcriminal tips his hat as he hops into the back of a cab, and disappears around the corner. Momentarily, Chaleck resumes his place at the restaurant, celebrating his latest escape with champagne.
The Haunted Villa: Lady Beltham receives an unexpected letter from Gurn/Fantômas. Unable to keep her resolve not to see her murderous lover, she goes to the rendezvous. She is startled by the appearance of Dr. Chaleck in her room, but Fantômas quickly reassures her that he is actually Gurn, her lover, in disguise. Despite her revulsion toward the criminal, the English mistress succumbs to the will of Gurn/Fantômas, and she agrees to meet him at her deserted villa every Tuesday at midnight. Juve and Fandor, disguised as businessmen, visit Lady Beltham's deserted villa under the pretence of buying the property. The caretaker lets them in, and shows them around the "haunted villa." Upstairs, the disguised inspector discovers a pen covered with fresh ink—in an empty house? The caretaker insists that the house is haunted, which he confirms by the voices he hears at night coming through the heating vents. Juve insists on seeing the basement, where he discovers a large furnace connected to the heating vents, as well as a rainwater cistern.
The following Tuesday, when Lady Beltham arrives for her appointed rendezvous with Gurn/Fantômas, she is followed by Juve and Fandor. Crawling into the heating vent, the detective and journalist overhear the conversation of the criminal lovers. They learn about Fantômas's plan to kill Juve, while the detective sleeps, with his "silent executioner." Bracing himself for a certain, but unknown, assassin, Juve straps protective corsets on his abdomen and arms before going to bed. Close by, Fandor hides in a wicker trunk at the foot of Juve's bed, as the detective awaits his killer. In the darkness, the silent executioner—a boa constrictor—arrives. In a frenzied battle with his would-be murderer, Juve escapes, as Fandor emerges from his hiding place, stumbling about in the "darkness" (indicated at the time by tinting the film blue), absolutely no help at all. Once again, Fantômas is foiled...
The Cistern/The Man In Black: Finally, Fantômas appears in the villa in his "true visage"—that is, 'en cagoule', the "Man in Black" dressed in black tights, shirt, gloves and hood. Still, the Lord of Terror senses that something is amiss at the villa, and he prepares himself for any confrontation with the police by wiring the house with dynamite. Hoping to surprise Fantômas, Juve and Fandor arrive at the villa with the police. But the Man in Black refuses to give in to his enemies. Pursued through the house, in a brilliant escape, Fantômas hides underwater in the basement cistern, breathing through a wine bottle whose bottom he punctured on the drying rack. When Juve fails to find Fantômas in the basement, he has the police light a fire in the furnace in order to "smoke out" the archcriminal. After Juve and the police leave the basement, Fantômas reemerges from the cistern. He crawls out a basement window and runs to the neighbouring workshed, where he throws the electrical switch which ignites the dynamite and blows up the house. In triumph, the Lord of Terror stretches his arms to the sky in a gesture of victory. "But are Juve and Fandor really dead?" The next episode will tell...
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 4. Photo: Gaumont. Georges Melchior as Fandor and Edmund Breon as Inspector Juve in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Warned a 'silent executioner' will attack Juve, he has armed himself with a belt of spikes, while Fandor hides in a basket. Indeed, a giant boa constrictor attacks Juve.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 5. Photo: Gaumont. Georges Melchior as Fandor and Edmund Breon as Inspector Juve in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Juve and Fandor inspect the cistern in the Haunted Villa.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 6. Photo: Gaumont. René Navarre as Fantomas in a scene from the serial Fantomas, second series, Juve versus Fantômas/Juve contre Fantômas (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Fantomas aka The Man in Black dynamites the villa in which Juve and Fandor are.
La Mort qui tue (1913)
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 1. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Fandor (Georges Melchior) has hidden in a trunk and discovers the body of Thomery.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 2. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Fantomas (René Navarre), dressed as the Black Man, is about to chloroform the painter Jacques Dollon (André Luguet).
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 3. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). A devastated Elisabeth Dollon (Fabienne Fabrèges) hears from the judge that her husband apparently has killed a baroness and is arrested. On the left, Fandor (Georges Melchior) assists.
The six episodes of the next Fantômas sequel, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, November 1913), make it one of the longest in the series, and in reprising characters and situations from the earlier films, it is even more grisly in its violence. After Juve and Fandor escape the destruction of Lady Beltham's villa (not without injury), it is the journalist who now pursues the archcriminal, but with no more success than Juve had. As before, Fantômas's exploits take him and his pursuer through several different levels of French society.
In the first episode, Fantômas chloroforms a painter named Jacques Dollon (André Luguet) in order to set him up for the murder of a wealthy baroness he has killed. In prison, the guard Nibet (Naudier) stabs Dollon to death, and Fantômas takes away the body in order to remove the skin of its right hand—for a human glove. Here, Juve, disguised as a clochard, has to rescue Fandor who has followed Fantômas to a Seine sewer inlet (where Dollon's body is dumped). Princes Danidoff (Jane Faber), whom we saw in the first episode, returns in the third episode, to give a party for her fiancé Thomery (Luitz-Morat), a sugar-plantation owner, and promptly is robbed of her jewels again by Fantômas, disguised as a banker named Nanteuil—but on her neck (she has been rendered unconscious) is a fingerprint that turns out to be Dollon's.
Lady Beltham then returns in the next episode, to deliver a ransom note for the jewels to Thomery, who is lured to an empty apartment and garroted by Fantômas's gang. In the fifth episode, Fantômas searches the Pension Bourrat, where Elizabeth Dollon (Fabienne Fabrèges) is staying, trying to recover an enigmatic list she found earlier in her brother's cell, and Fandor arrives just in time to save her from being asphyxiated—and sends her to a convent for protection. Then, hidden in a packing basket of her belongings which Fantômas has requisitioned, he is transported to the gang's hideout and discovers Thomery's body. Finally, Fandor links up again with Juve, and they confront Nanteuil, thinking that they have Fantômas at last—but he vanishes before their eyes (and guns) through a secret wall panel door.
From this narrative summary, the six episodes of Le mort qui tue would seem to correspond closely to the film's six reels. According to the National Film Archive's print, however, which covers only the last three episodes and has Czech intertitles (All of the Fantômas films were restored in 1995-1996 by Gaumont Studios, with the assistance of the French Government), this film, too, either carried the action across at least some of the reel breaks or else used the reel break to heighten suspense near the end of an episode. One break in the NFA print, for instance, comes just after Fantômas exits from Elizabeth's room at the pension, after having drugged her coffee and turned on the gas; the next opens with Fandor breaking into the room to turn off the gas and open a window.
Yet, if Le mort qui tue resembles its predecessors in this use of reel breaks, its mode of representation is slightly different. Most of the scenes, for instance, are shot in studio decors, and frequent intertitles either link or interrupt the AS ("American Shot" - from the knees up), LS (Long Shot) or FS (Full Shot), LS tableaux. Some of the decors, especially the ones with less depth, are quite spare, but this is used to good effect for moments like the garroting—where Thomery steps from a background painted-flat hallway into an empty room, through a central doorway on either side of which two hooded figures stand poised. One of the film's more interesting features, however, is the greater number of cut-in CUs (Close-Ups) and ECUs (Extreme Close-Ups) of objects, which prove more deceptive than revealing.
In episode three, for instance, the CU photograph of the fingerprint lifted from the princess's neck baffles her guests, and the ECU of the pearls that Lady Beltham shows Thomery deceives him into believing that the ransom exchange is genuine—in both cases, by contrast, the spectator can conclude that this is Fantômas's handiwork. Curiously, another cut-in close shot briefly positions the spectator as superior to Fantômas — when Elizabeth stuffs the list into the back of a blotter, which he later overlooks in his search of her room. Yet, a cut-in CU of his hand turning the gas lever then threatens to take revenge on her for the sleight of hand, as well as on any spectator tempted to identify with her. These CUs culminate in the last scene as Juve rips the glove of human skin from Fantômas's hand—only to have him disappear through the wall, secreted beneath one more fake exterior.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 4. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Princess Danidoff (Jane Faber) is kissed by her fiancé, the rich Thomery (Luitz-Morat), but Fantomas (the moustached man on the left), dressed as the banker Nanteuil, has more eyes for her jewels.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 5. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). The prison warden discovers the disappearance of Dollon and scoffs at the guards. On the right Dollon's wife Elisabeth (Fabienne Fabrèges) and Fandor (Georges Melchior) assist.
Spanish minicard by Reclam Films, Mallorca, card no. 6. Photo: Gaumont. Scene from the third episode of the French silent crime serial Fantomas, La Mort qui tue/The Dead Man Who Killed (Louis Feuillade, 1913). Fantomas (René Navarre) is held at gunpoint by Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon) and Fandor (Georges Melchior), but manages to escape - again - through a hidden door in the wall behind him.
Sources: Robin Walz (Fantomas lives), Richard Abel (The Ciné Goes To Town: French Cinema 1896-1914), and IMDb.
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