Fantômas (1913 serial)
- René Navarre: Fantômas
- Edmond Breon: Inspector Juve
- Georges Melchior Jérôme Fandor
- Renée Carl: Lady Beltham
- Jane Faber: Princess Danidoff
- André Volbert: Actors Valgrand
- Naudier: jailer Nibet
Fantômas is a five-part series of Louis Feuillade French film from the years 1913/14, based on the novel series Fantômas by Pierre Marcel Allain and Souvestre. 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 Fandor Jérôme take up the fight against him.
Effect
Feuillade film adaptation of the Fantômas novels was a sensational success. According to the magazine Le Petit Journal writes, attracted the first part of Fantômas. A l' ombre de la guillotine 80,000 admissions in the Gaumont Palace (at the time with 3,400 seats, the largest cinema in the world ). The criticism does this in part to the popularity of the so-called Bonnot gang back, a group of anarchists that shook in the years 1911-1912 France and Belgium with their spectacular robberies and outclasses with its modern equipment ( automatic rifles and automobiles ) police forces far were. The technical arms race between Fantômas ' gang and the Paris Sûreté (monitoring techniques, biometrics, use of the escape car ) actually plays a major role in the series. But even more abstract reasons for the fascination with which the series was received, are called: "Probably more to the point are the notions of crime as art and art as metaphysics did inspired poets as Robert Desnos examined and Jacques Prevert, whereby cop and crook Periodically become interchangeable and staid appearances deceive almost by definition, providing the template for early Feuillade 's serials master. " In particular, the ratio of police officers to criminal or civil, with its political implications makes Feuillade so modern "Inspector Juve and anarcho criminal Fantômas are the classic Schizophrenenpaar of citizens and private man. The journalist Fandor, justice fanatics with the quill, acts as the paranoid petty bourgeoisie to the raging wild masquerade. "
DVD releases
USA: Fantômas. Kino International, September 21, 2010 Region 0/NTSC, 3 DVD's, only eng. Intertitles, 337 minutes. Newly mastered by good 35mm prints. 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 provide the best image quality.
GB: Fantômas. Artificial Eye, February 20, 2006 Region 2/pal, 2 DVD, French intertitles 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 in 1998. Basis of the British DVD.
" A l' ombre de la guillotine Fantômas. " Downloaded from the Internet Archive