Fantômas in the
Shadow of the Guillotine (1913), directed by Louis Feuillade, 3 stars
Apparently,
Louis Feuillade made 45 or so films per year on average during his career,
about 800 in all. Granted, almost all of them are shorts, but taken as a unit, that’s still quite a magnum
opus. I mention this only to apply some
sense of scale to my familiarity with his work.
As of today, I’ve seen one scene from another film (“The Vampires”) and this. Thus, I am nowhere near qualified to accurately assess the merits of this film against Feuillade’s
prolific output overall. What I can say, however, is that I was pleasantly entertained for the film’s 54 minutes, which follows the elicit actions of our antihero, Fantômas, aka Gurn, as
he eludes Inspector Juve and company after first boldly robbing Princess
Danidoff of jewelry and cash, and afterward murdering and then attempting to
dispose of the body Lady Beltham’s husband. I
think that if I’d known more of the back story I’d have been in a better
position to understand what was happening and why. Since I’m not familiar with the Fantômas series
of books, on which this and other Fantômas
films are based, I simply went along with the plot, assuming that characters
had more compelling reasons for doing what they did than I could see evidence of on screen. I hope I’m not giving too much away by
revealing that about half way through the film, Juve catches up with Gurn, and from that point forward, Fantômas plots an elaborate escape from jail so as to avoid a death sentence by guillotine—all this with the help of Lady Beltham whose husband he has
killed. I can see how audiences might feel favorably disposed toward the title character, although my single foray into Fantômas
filmdom did not produce that result. He’s
brazen, he's bold, and what's more, he’s French, but for me, at least so far, he's lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. Since
the DVD set that includes this film also contains four additional Fantômas titles, audio
commentaries, and more, I wouldn't be surprised to find myself liking him more as I get to know him better over time.
Oh, yes. Fantômas has
some wonderful business cards. They start out blank, but words appear under certain mysterious circumstances. It would be
interesting to hand cards like that to my customers.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantomas
for more info or http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27794/27794-h/27794-h.htm
to read the book on which this film is based.