The vampires
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The vampires |
| Original title | Les Vampires |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1915 |
| length | 480 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Louis Feuillade |
| script | Louis Feuillade |
| production | Gaumont |
| camera | Manichoux |
| occupation | |
| |
Die Vampire (Original title: Les Vampires ) is a ten-part French silent film serial by Louis Feuillade from the years 1915/16 about a gang of criminals who call themselves "the Vampires" and their mischief mainly in Paris, but also in the surrounding area drives. Your opponent is the journalist Philippe Guérande, supported by the renegade vampire Oscar Mazamette.
action
| No. | title | date | Duration | content |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
La tete coupée The Severed Head |
11/13/1915 | 33 min | When the headless body of Inspector Durtal is found in a swamp near Saint-Clermont-sur-Cher, the journalist Philippe Guérande is sent to report on it. He takes the opportunity to meet Dr. Nox to visit an old friend of his late father who welcomes him to the Château de la Chesnaye. But unexpectedly, Guérande comes across a warning from the vampires not to interfere in their affairs, which begins a life-and-death struggle. |
| 2 |
La bague qui do The Ring that Kills |
11/13/1915 | 15 minutes | The dancer Marta Koutiloff announces that she will reveal the secret of the vampires to Philippe, but is poisoned and dies in the open during her performance as a vampire bat. After the performance, Philippe is captured by the vampires, but with the help of an acquaintance he escapes and calls the police. |
| 3 |
Le cryptogramme rouge The Red Codebook |
December 04, 1915 | 42 min | Philippe begins to decipher the secret code of the vampires, while the great strategist of the vampires, Irma Vep, develops a plan to sneak into Guérande's house and recapture the encrypted book of the great vampire. |
| 4th |
Le specter The Specter |
07/01/1916 | 32 min | A competition between the vampires and the gang of gangster Moreno breaks out. Guérande succeeds in arresting Moreno. |
| 5 |
L'évasion du mort Dead Man's Escape |
01/28/1916 | 37 min | Moreno escapes from prison by faking his death, while Guérande is captured by the vampires. With Mazamette's help, he finally manages to escape. The Great Vampire throws a grand ball to steal the jewels of all elegant society at once, but in the end is duped by Moreno. |
| 6th |
Les yeux qui fascinent Hypnotic Eyes |
March 24, 1916 | 58 min | Moreno succeeds in making Irma Vep submissive by means of hypnosis and thus takes control of the vampires. |
| 7th |
Satanas Satanas |
04/15/1916 | 46 min | Satanas reveals himself to be the secret leader of the vampires. He kills Moreno by bombing his regular restaurant. His plan to steal the fortune of the American millionaire George Baldwin, however, fails due to the intervention of Guérande and Mazamette. |
| 8th |
Le maître de la foudre The Thunder Master |
05/12/1916 | 55 min | Irma Vep is arrested and is to be shipped to a penal colony. Satanas succeeds in helping her to escape, but at the cost of his own capture. He commits suicide in prison. |
| 9 |
L'homme des poisons The Poisoner |
06/02/1916 | 53 min | The vampires get a new leader, the poison and bomb specialist "Venomous", who also tries promptly - but unsuccessfully - to poison Philippe Guérande. |
| 10 |
Les noces sanglantes The Terrible Wedding |
06/30/1916 | 60 min | The engagement party for Philippe and Jeanne is supposed to offer the vampires the opportunity to clear up their opponents once and for all, but this plan also fails. The wedding of Irma Vep and Venomous, which takes place shortly afterwards, ends in a bloodbath. |
effect
In November 1915, the walls of Paris were covered with posters depicting three masked faces with a question mark as a noose and the questions “Who, what, when, where?”. The morning papers published the following poem:
|
Des nuits sans lune ils sont les Rois, Les ténèbres sont leur empire. Portant la mort, semant l'effroi. Voici le vol noir des Vampires. Gorgés de sang, visqueux et lourds. Ils vont, les sinistres Vampires Aux grandes ailes de velours Non pas vers le Mal ... Vers le Pire! |
They are the kings of the moonless night, |
The 1996 film Irma Vep by Olivier Assayas is about a director's attempt to remake The Vampires and is the latest homage to the silent film series.
Henri Langlois (1965): "I am convinced that surrealism preexisted in cinema. Feuillade's Les vampires was already an expression of the 20th century and of the universal subconscious."
Availability
DVD:
- France: Les Vampires. Coffret 4 DVD. Deuxieème Edition. Gaumont, March 1, 2008, Region 2 / PAL, 400 minutes. Restored version of the series and some short films as extra.
- Great Britain: Les Vampires. Artificial Eye, March 24, 2008, Region 2 / PAL, 339 minutes. 3 DVD based on the Gaumont Edition with Engl. Subtitles, some short films as an extra.
- USA: Les Vampires. Image Entertainment, April 5, 2005, Region 1 / NTSC, 399 minutes, 2 DVD.
- USA: Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires. Restored by the Cinémathèque Francaise. Kino Lorber, August 14, 2012, Region 1 / NTSC, 2 Blu-ray or 2 DVD.
Download:
- The vampires as a complete film in theInternet Archive
Web links
- The vampires in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Entry "Les Vampires" by James Travers on filmsdefrance.com
- Portrait: Les Vampires by Louis Feuillade at arte-tv.com
- Les Vampires UK DVD release review (English, original photos are protected)
- Jonathan Rosenbaum: The Birth of a Notion
Individual evidence
- ↑ Patrice Gauthier, Francis Lacassin: Louis Feuillade. Maître du cinéma popular. Paris: Gallimard 2006, p. 68.