Fantômas (1932)
Directed by Pál Fejös

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.

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...