Fantômas [1913-14]

It's as hard to overestimate the impact of Fantômas - whether considered a serial, a series or an epic-length one-off - as it is to discern in it all the qualities that thrilled its original mass audience, not to mention highbrow enthusiasts from James Joyce to the surrealists. Based on the novels by Souvestre and Allain and directed by Louis Feuillade, it is essentially five films, which aren't quite self-contained - though the one that ends with a cliff-hanger, as an explosion seems to get rid of both Fantômas's arch-enemies, is followed elliptically by a sequel which doesn't return to the scene of the crime and follows the surviving journalist hero Fandor [Georges Melchior] for most of a feature-length film before revealing that the policeman Juve [Edmond Breon] has also made it out alive and has been around in disguise infiltrating the villain's gang. Disguises are a common theme, as Fantômas [Rene Navarre] - like Holmes before him and Mabuse later - turns up in various fake identities throughout [if he has any real name or background it's not revealed here].

Fantômas [A l'ombre de la guillotine] draws on incidents from the first novel - a hotel robbery, the trunk murder of Lord Beltham, Fantômas's conviction for this under the name of Gurn and his escape from the blade - with the contrivance of his mistress, Lady Beltham [the rather matronly Renee Carl] - by duping a vain actor who disguises himself nightly as Gurn for a play into an assignation which winds up with him losing his head and Fantômas going free. Juve and Fandor also make their debuts, and vow to pursue the fiend - at the end, Juve sees the superimposed spectre of Fantômas in evening dress and domino mask as on the book jacket [which wears nowhere else], almost suggesting that the villain really is a phantasm. Fantômas II: Juve contre Fantômas has some spectacle early on, with the villain causing a massive train wreck [effective model shots] and gets the mystery man into his familiar outfit of skintight black with a black Klan-look hooded mastermind hood. Fantômas III: Le Mort qui Tue uses the gruesome gimmick of gloves sewn from the skin of a disappeared and framed dead man to leave evidence on murder victims - the fingerprinting is augmented by then-modish Bertillon measurements to play up the police procedural aspect, though otherwise the storylines are outlandish. Fantômas IV: Fantômas contre Fantômas plays around more with the villain's identity, as the press who harangue Juve for failing to catch the crook suddenly get the notion that the reason for this is that he actually is Fantômas - while Juve has to escape prison and be thought a crook, Fantômas adopts the guise of American detective 'Tom Bob' and uses this identity to get away with more misdeeds. Fantômas V: Le Faux Magistrat has Fantômas again posing as a lawman - this time, an investigating magistrate.

Putting all this on film means we are in no doubt that Fantômas is a real person - whereas at least in the first book, the possibility exists that he really is Juve or a ghost or an identity passed around the gang - and Navarre is so obviously the charismatic star that the forces of good, the wily Juve and the straight Fandor, rarely get to threaten him much. I'd guess that the surrealist reading of the identity-switching makes great play with the collusion of corrupt officials [a crooked prison officer] and a ruthless criminal [Fantômas doesn't even have the gallantry of Arsene Lupin - he's just a flamboyant sociopath who murders casually] who often poses as a respectable bourgeois [a cop or a lawyer], indicating anyone respectable is probably a crook. This holds water, so far as it goes, but the 1913-4 level filmmaking, all long and medium shots, makes it hard for the modern viewer to feel involved in the action, stressing the sense of people playing roles, adopting disguises and plotting against each other almost for the sake of it. Feuillade wanted to make films which were more than one- or two-reelers, and his ambitions shine through: effects set-pieces like train wrecks, exterior scenes in Paris or the countryside [lots of veteran cars, though this was to make the piece feel modern] and an epic sweep. I'm not sure whether he planned to make more episodes - there were certainly many more books - and the last episode seems a bit less enthusiastic, as if Fantômas, Juve & Co have fallen into a rut since their introduction and never will make any progress in their eternal war with each other.
KIM NEWMAN

First published in this form here.

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