Film Review
Cinema's first sound adaptation of Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain's popular
Fantômas books is an eccentric potpourri of sensational episodes
that appear to have been filched from other films and somewhat carelessly
thrown together with scant regard for narrative cohesion or artistic integrity.
The film begins with a brazen take on the 'old dark house' theme, a mainstay
of the horror genre since Paul Leni's
The Cat and the Canary
(1927), and then quickly morphs into a
Maigret-style murder mystery complete
with every police-procedural trope you care to name.
As this line of attack winds down to an asthmatic crawl the tempo suddenly
shifts up about ten gears with a suspenseful sequence at a car race that
is far more redolent of
Hitchcock's
famous thrillers than anything conceived by Fantômas's authors.
One highly improbable murder attempt is followed by another, the whole thing
concluding with a grand finale involving a surprisingly violent punch-up
and an explosive escape that allows the homicidal antihero to abscond and
fight another day.
Structurally, it is a total mess of a film and there is none of the refined
artistry and poetry that Louis Feuillade brought to his
series of five
Fantômas films almost two decades previously. It doesn't
even compare well with the American silent version
Fantômas
(1920-21), a serial of twenty episodes, directed by Edward Sedgwick.
Feuillade's stylish pentalogy (1913-14) is an altogether classier work, far
closer in spirit to Souvestre and Allain's enduringly popular stories.
In Feuillade's films, the titular master criminal is a force of nature, a
shape-shifting fiend with superhuman, even supernatural powers, and an almost
unbounded capacity for evil. What Paul Fejos gives us in his film is
a fairly run-of-the-mill stock villain, whose power derives less from his
personal mythic qualities and more from his ingenious use of modern technology
- including aeroplanes and guns fitted with silencers.
Fejos's Inspector Juve is just as dull and uninspired as his interpretation
of Fantômas - an uncharismatic plodding detective who is so physically
feeble that he cannot put up even the slightest defence when he is finally
confronted with his enemy. Thomy Bourdelle's portrayal of Juve as a
second-rate Maigret is matched by an equally lacklustre performance from
Jean Galland, who appears to be under a misapprehension that he is playing
the gentleman thief
Arsène
Lupin rather than the ultra-malevolent super-criminal Fantômas.
This clearly wasn't what the film's producer Pierre Braunberger had been
expecting when he invited Paul Fejos to direct the film on his return to
Europe after his successful stint in Hollywood. At the time, Fejos
was one of the most highly regarded film directors in the world, garnering
international acclaim for his masterpiece
Lonesome (1928). Yet
the poetry and visual flair that the Hungarian director had brought to his
silent films are noticeably lacking in his
Fantômas bash, a
rare and pretty pointless excursion for him into crowd-pleasing genre territory.
Fejos started out as an assistant to Fritz Lang in Germany in the mid-1920s,
and this can be seen in the way he uses expressionistic lighting to create
an aura of lurking menace and impending doom - most successfully in the first
part of the film, which reproduces the anxiety-inducing ambiance of James
Whale's
The Old Dark House
(1932). The action sequences in the second half of the film are also
impressively filmed, particularly the car race episode, which uses slick
fast-cutting to great effect to heighten the suspense and anticipation (and
thereby detract from the utter stupidity of this bit of narrative contrivance).
The spectacular ending in which Fantômas makes his miraculous escape
recalls that of Lang's
Dr Mabuse,
der Spieler (1922), providing a suitably thrilling end to what is
little more than a hackneyed comicbook adventure.
This souped-up
Fantômas offering may have been a commercial
success (presumably because it gave cinema audiences what they wanted - a
deluge of cheap thrills on the back of an exceedingly popular book series)
but it does little for the reputation of Paul Fejos. Given the film's
popularity with audiences, it is surprising that Braunberger didn't exercise
the option to churn out a series of sequels (it is possible that Souvestre
and Allain disliked the film so much that they vetoed the idea). It
would be another fifteen years before the most iconic villain in French literature
had his next big screen outing, in Jean Sacha's
Fantômas (1947), another botched
attempt to transport the Belle Époque master-criminal to a contemporary
setting.
Saddled with a poor script that lacks both logic and cohesion, with the result
that most of the performances are either flat or hammy, the 1932 version
of
Fantômas is pretty deficient both as a thriller and as a
literary adaptation. It does however manage to redeem itself (just
about) with its starkly sinister visuals and some effective tension-building
editing, so that whilst the film is jarringly uneven it does hold the attention
and passes surprisingly quickly. In any event, it does at least make
some attempt to connect with Souvestre-Allain's goose-pimple-inducing morbid
dreamscape, which is more than can be said of
André Hunebelle's idiotic comic take
of the 1960s, in which Fantômas becomes a tetchy green-skinned alien
ineffectually pursued by the most inept cop in history.
© James Travers 2022
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
One dark stormy night, the Marquise de Langrune is hosting a large dinner
party at her spacious château. As thunder rages around them,
the assembled guests become increasingly agitated when their conversation
turns to the notorious master-criminal Fantômas, who is now at liberty
after a stretch in prison. Not long after the guests have turned in
for the night, the Marquise is attacked and killed in her room by a mysterious
black-clad assailant - Fantômas! Having helped himself to a small
fortune in cash, the masked criminal slips into a secret passageway and makes
his escape. The only witness to the crime is the Princess Sonia Davidoff,
but she is too traumatised to speak.
The redoubtable Inspector Juve arrives and takes charge of the investigation.
He finds that on the night of the murder a light aircraft landed in the grounds
of the chateau. Tracing the aeroplane to Paris, he learns that its
owner is none other than Lady Beltham! It later transpires that her
ladyship had two keys cut for the plane, one of which has mysteriously disappeared.
Princess Davidoff is the arch-criminal's next victim - strangled in her Paris
hotel room to prevent her from revealing his identity. As he interviews
the staff at the hotel, Juve is surprised to discover that one of their number
is Charles Rambert, a young man who was present at the château on the
night the Marquise was killed. At first Rambert would appear to be
the obvious suspect, but Juve soon realises that he has been deceived by
appearances.
The scene shifts to the Grand Prix des Nations racing competition in Paris,
where Lord Beltham is one of the entrants. Fantômas uses this occasion
to rid himself of another potential threat, pouring oil onto the track to
bring about a convenient little accident. Beltham survives the attempt
on his life, but is subsequently shot dead by his enemy whilst being operated
on in hospital. Juve's attention turns to the strange young man who
attended the fatal car race in the company of Lady Beltham, the dandified
Monsieur Gurn.
Interviewing Lady Beltham and Gurn together, Juve obtains conclusive proof
that Gurn is in fact Fantômas, but the discovery almost costs him his
life when the desperate criminal attacks him. Charles Rambert comes
to the inspector's aid, and after a fierce tussle, Fantômas is overpowered
by the police. As the arch-criminal is being taken away in a police
car, he pulls off a spectacular escape, leaving Juve to comment that it will
not be long before Fantômas will strike again...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.