Fantômas (series 1913)

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Movie
German title Fantomas
Original title Fantômas
Fantomas early film poster.jpg
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1913 / 1914
length 340 minutes
Rod
Director Louis Feuillade
script Louis Feuillade
production Romeo Bosetti
music Paul Fosse
camera Georges Guérin
cut Georges Guérin
occupation
In the shadow of the guillotine

Fantômas is a five-part French film series by Louis Feuillade from 1913/14 based on the novel series Fantômas by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. Léon Gaumont acquired the film rights in 1913 for 6,000 francs and commissioned the artistic director Feuillade with the implementation.

action

Fantômas , the master of crime, terrorizes Paris. Inspector Juve and the journalist Jérôme Fandor take up the fight against him.

part title date Duration content
1 Fantomas I: In the shadow of the guillotine May 5, 1913 54 min We see Fantômas at work for the first time when he robbed Princess Danidoff in the hotel and escapes disguised as a hotel boy. Inspector Juve takes up the chase. When he pays a visit to Lady Beltham in connection with Lord Beltham's disappearance, he tracks down the mysterious Gurn, in whose luggage, piled up ready for departure, he finds the lord's body. Gurn is identified as Fantômas and arrested, but Lady Beltham has a plan to escape.
2 Fantomas II: Juve against Fantomas September 12, 1913 61 min After Fantômas' spectacular escape, there is no longer any indication of his whereabouts. As a Dr. Chaleck reports the discovery of an unidentifiable woman's corpse on which Lady Beltham's papers were found, Juve and Fandor pursue the obscure Dr. and learn of the plan for a spectacular train robbery, which they cannot prevent. The hunt begins again, first it goes to a wine shop in Bercy, where Fantômas' gang has set an ambush, then the master criminal is temporarily arrested, who is able to escape again with a trick. Juve survived the ingenious attack of the 'silent executor'. Finally it becomes clear that Lady Beltham is still alive and that she meets with Fantômas regularly in her old villa. Fantômas was not caught unprepared for the quickly scheduled raid: he detonated an explosive device; Juve, Fandor and all the police officers are buried under the rubble of the house.
3 Fantomas III: a murderous corpse November 28, 1913 90 min The artist Jacques Dollon, who was wrongly accused of murder and arrested, is killed in prison and his body stolen. A number of crimes are now being committed that are accused of fingerprinting the deceased. Since Juve remains missing, Fandor continues to investigate on his own. At the same time, the (literally) Parisian underworld and its connections to Fantômas are portrayed. A piece of paper found at Dollon by his sister provides information about the villain's next steps, but puts Elisabeth Dollon in extreme danger.
4th Fantomas IV: Fantomas versus Fantomas March 13, 1914 59 min Fantômas is still not behind bars. The press is now accusing Commissioner Juve of being the criminal himself. Indeed, under public pressure, he is arrested. Happy with the scapegoat, Fantômas helps Juve to escape and kidnaps him. While Fandor is doing his own research, the perplexed police get support (and not a little ridicule) from the American detective Tom Bob.
5 Fantomas V: The wrong investigator May 8, 1914 70 min Fantômas, who is in Leuven prison , is freed there by Inspector Juve. He is said to be arrested again in France, but escapes his observers. In one train he meets an investigator. After killing him, he slips into his role.

effect

Premiere cinema of the films

Feuillade's adaptation of the Fantômas novels was a sensational success. As the magazine Le Petit Journal writes, the first part attracted Fantômas. A l'ombre de la guillotine 80,000 cinema-goers in the Gaumont Palace (at that time the largest cinema in the world with 3,400 seats). Criticism attributes this in part to the popularity of the so-called Bonnot gang , a group of anarchists who rocked France and Belgium with their spectacular robberies between 1911 and 1912 and who far superior to the police force due to their modern equipment (automatic rifles and automobiles) were. The technical arms race between Fantômas' gang and the Paris Sûreté (surveillance techniques, biometrics, use of getaway vehicles) actually plays an essential role in the series. But more abstract reasons for the fascination with which the series was received are also mentioned: “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 Feuillade so modern: " Inspector Juve and the anarcho criminal Fantômas are the classic Schizophrenic couple of citizen and private individual. The journalist Fandor, the justice fanatic with the quill pen, acts as the paranoid petty bourgeois around whom the wild mummery rages. "

DVD publications

UNITED STATES:

  • Fantômas. Kino International, September 21, 2010, Region 0 / NTSC, 3 DVD, English only Subheads, 337 minutes. Remastered from good 35mm copies. Extras: The Nativity (1910), The Dwarf (1912), photo gallery and a ten-minute documentary “Louis Feuillade: Master of Many Forms”. This edition is designed to offer the best image quality.

GB:

  • Fantômas. Artificial Eye, February 20, 2006, Region 2 / PAL, 2 DVD, French subtitles with English. Subtitles, 335 minutes.

Q:

  • Fantômas. Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video, March 20, 2000, Region 2 / PAL, 2 DVD, only French intertitles, 335 minutes. UPC 3-333297-870658. Restoration of Gaumont and Cinématheque française 1998. Basis of the British DVD.
  • Fantômas. A l'ombre de la guillotine

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the picture on the movie posters, Fantômas was retouched the knife in his right hand .
  2. ↑ German title after performance at arte
  3. ^ Date of publication according to the filmography in: Francis Lacassin : Louis Feuillade. Maître des lions et des vampires. Bordas, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-86311-271-6 .
  4. ↑ Patrice Gauthier, Francis Lacassin: Louis Feuillade. Maître du cinéma popular (= Découvertes Gallimard. Vol. 486 Arts ). Gallimard, Paris 2006, ISBN 2-07-031926-1 , p. 63.
  5. ^ With Fantômas, whose film premiered here, the Gaumont Palace was sold out for the first time in 1913. The other parts also premiered here. The Gaumont Palace was only due to be demolished in 1972.
  6. ↑ Jonathan Rosenbaum: The Lure of Crime: Feuillade's FANTOMAS Films. ( Memento of the original from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Seen March 5, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jonathanrosenbaum.net
  7. ↑ Quoted from: Thomas Brandlmeier: Fantômas. Contributions to the panic of the 20th century. 2007, p. 15.