Fantomas (1913)

Originally posted to Facebook on 3/23/2016

We continued our chronological movie watching with Fantomas, our second film from 1913. This was a serial, with five parts, each hovering somewhere between an hour and ninety minute. We watched them over two weekends. It was produced at Gaumont, the same studio as Child of Paris and Mystery of the Kador Cliffs, and was directed by Louis Feuillade. The movie takes its name from its central character, a criminal mastermind played by René Navarre, who is being hunted by Juve (Edmund Breon), a police detective, and Fandor (Georges Melchior), a journalist. It was extremely tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely a comedy. It’s difficult to explain the tone without spoilers, so let me give just one: Early on in the serial, Juve and Fandor have apprehended Fantomas at a restaurant. He agrees to come with with them, and gets his coat from the coat check. They walk out, Juve and Fandor each holding an arm. After walking a few blocks, Fantomas breaks free and runs off, leaving Juve and Fandor each holding a fake prosthetic arm that he’d apparently inserted into his coat as they were leaving. Fantomas eventually winds up back at the restaurant to finish his meal. One more: Juve is aware that Fantomas is going to try to murder him in his sleep, so he has Fandor hide in his bedroom. During the night, a car pulls up outside, and a python slithers out and into Juve’s bedroom via a window. After Fandor and Juve fight off the python, it flees back out of the window, and gets back in the car, which then drives off. Did I mention that Juve somehow suspected a python would be involved and wore a python-resistant suit in preparation? I shouldn’t give the idea that the serial is made up of non-stop nonsense. There’s a lot of procedural cat-and-mouse type action, and also lots of people dressing up in various disguises. But it is definitely interspersed with bizarre cliffhangers and escapes. It did peter out a little toward the end, in part because the fifth episode has not completely survived, and title cards explaining missing action have been added to compensate.

Next week we’ll watch our third film from 1913: The Last Days of Pompeii. The full list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT