Edouard Mathe | Century Film Project

The Mysterious Shadow (1916)

This is the first official episode of “Judex,” the first having been mere “prologue.” This one would make very little sense without it the other, however, so I’d be inclined to call it episode 2.

The story picks up shortly after the engagement party at which the banker Favraux (Louis Leubas) unexpectedly died after taking a sip of wine. His daughter Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor), who is completely innocent and ignorant of the crimes he has committed, is grief-stricken, but now Cocantin (Marcel Lévesque), the detective Favraux hired, shows her the threatening notes that he had received, which explicitly accuse him of theft and murder. She checks with her father’s secretary and learns that it is all true. Then, to add to her stress, a new note arrives that explicitly enumerates the crimes the mysterious “Judex” holds Favraux responsible for. She decides that she cannot keep a fortune earned dishonestly, and makes arrangements to give it all to the Bureau of Public Assistance. Since the Viscount (Georges Flateau) had only wanted to marry her for her money, she releases him from their engagement. She puts her son, Little Jean (Olinda Mano) in the care of trustworthy servants, dismissing the others (including Musidora), and seeking work to support herself and to send money for his education.

Judex strikes a pose.

Before she can leave the now-empty mansion, however, she receives an unexpected phone call. The voice on the other end sounds like her father, and he begs for her forgiveness. Jacqueline thinks she must be going mad, and goes out into the street alone, but we shift scenes to the recent past and an explanation. For now we first see the shadowy Judex (René Cresté) with a gang of grave robbers, retrieving the body of the deceased and taking it to an underground catacomb. Jude is tall and slender, and wears a hat and a long cape, looking somewhat like the Shadow, although his face is visible. His base is “the underground passages of Chateau Rouge.” He revives the “dead” man, revealing that the poison in the drink only gave the appearance of death, and forces the man to call his daughter and beg forgiveness.

Next, we see Little Jean, apparently enjoying helping out with chores on the farm he now lives on with the former servants, and receiving a letter in which his mother tells him about the work she has taken on, tutoring English and music. He tucks the letter lovingly into his blouse. Then, we see Jacqueline at her work, still wearing the black clothing of grief, and fending off the advances of an overly amorous employer. Said employer, it transpires, is buddies with Moralés (Jean Devalde) and Musidora, and he tells them of his infatuation. They advise him to let them abduct the woman of his dreams, possibly because they connect her with the disappearing heiress, whose whereabouts the papers are speculating about, or maybe just because they are criminal types who think that way. As they present the plan, they can capture her and then allow him to rescue her. Judex, however, is watching over Jacqueline, and sends her two white doves, which he instructs her to release if she ever needs his assistance.

This episode isn’t really a complete story, nor is it a “cliffhanger” the way serial episodes would be in years to come. It still seems to be taking its time in setting up situations without actually developing them very much. We now know that Jacqueline’s father is still alive, and in the custody of Judex, but it isn’t clear what justice Judex plans to enact on him. We know about the kidnapping plot, but haven’t seen it put into action. Also, we know that Jacqueline is effectively in hiding, but it’s not really clear what the bad guys want with her since she no longer has a fortune. We do get our first look at the title character and his home base, which is really just a room with various technical gadgets and a sliding panel, but it does fire the imagination that he has this underground chamber with apparently more secret rooms attached. In the background lurks Judex’s brother, played by Édouard Mathé, the bland star of “Les Vampires.” He seems more suited to his sidekick role, here. Sadly, we haven’t seen any more of Lévesque, who was really the saving grace of “Les Vampires.” I hope we aren’t done with him.

The photography in this episode is a bit less mobile than in the prologue, and we spend less time in close-up, and there are longer waits between edits, making this one seem a bit slower than the previous one although it is ten minutes shorter. There is, however, some nice tinting on the night scenes. The scene of the retrieval of the banker’s body is tinted red, I assume to give the impression of torchlight, or perhaps to heighten the mood a bit, and Jacqueline’s race into the unknown is tinted blue. This adds some visual interest to the story, but we’re still just getting started.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: André Glatti and Léon Klausse

Starring: René Cresté, Yvette Andréyor, Louis Leubas, Marcel Lévesque, Olinda Mano, Édouard Mathé, Georges Flateau, Musidora, Jean Devalde

Run Time: 26 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

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December 22, 2016

Judex – Prologue (1916)

Another crime serial from Louis Feuillade, this one has the remarkable twist of making the masked mastermind into a force of good! This first episode only really sets up the premise, but it is effective at drawing the viewer in to what promises to be a good ride.

Before I talk about the movie itself, let’s talk about the date. I generally date the movies I review by the year of release, which is usually the same year they are shot, or in the case of movies shot at the end of the year, sometimes the year after. In this case, Feuillade made this movie and “Les Vampires” more or less simultaneously in 1914, then went off to serve in World War One. Gaumont Studios released “Les Vampires” beginning at the end of 1915 and running through early 1916, then finally released the first episode of “Judex” in December, 1916, but most of the episodes weren’t seen until 1917. As a result, you may find it listed in different places as a 1916 movie, a 1917 movie, or even a 1914 movie! I’m going to stick to my tradition of reviewing the episodes separately, and dating them according to which year they were actually released. Note, that this means that only this episode and the next one qualify as nominees for the 1916 Century Awards.

OK, let’s get on with the movie. The home video version begins with a lengthy credit sequence that I suspect did not exist at the time of original release. More common would have been an introduction to the cast of characters through short clips showing them in action (as with “Fantômas” and “Child of the Paris”), and that would have made it a lot easier to keep track of all of these character names. I kept recognizing actors from other Gaumont productions, but then not being able to remember who they are supposed to be. Imdb will be my friend in reviewing this series! We are quickly introduced to several characters once the movie does begin: There is Favraux, the banker (Louis Leubas), Robert Moralés (Jean Devalde) and Diana Monti (Musidora), who hope to blackmail the banker, and Jacqueline (Yvette Andréyor), the banker’s innocent daughter who is engaged to the impoverished Vicomte de la Rochefontaine (Georges Flateau). Musidora manages to infiltrate the premises by getting a job as the governess to Jean (Olinda Mano), Jacqueline’s son presumably by an earlier marriage.

One day, a tramp (Gaston Michel) shows up at the gate demanding to speak with Favraux. He is an old man who was swindled by Favraux, then sent to prison for 20 years when he embezzled to try to get out of financial difficulties. His wife has died, and now he hears rumors that his son is involved with crime as well, and he blames Favraux for all of it. Favraux, predictably, tells him to go away, and then less predictably runs him over in a car on the road a few minutes later (actually, his chauffeur runs him over, but Favraux is in the car). Soon, he receives a threatening letter signed only “Judex” (Latin for “judge”), which informs him he must turn over half his fortune to charity or die. Since the letter appeared mysteriously on his desk without anyone seeing who delivered it, Favraux is understandably concerned.

So, he hires a private investigator named Cocantin (Marcel Lévesque, who “Les Vampires” fans will remember as the wonderful Mazamette). Cocantin has only just inherited the detective business from his father, and there’s some amusing business between him and his employee, who clearly feels that Daddy was better-suited for the job. Cocantin doesn’t do much to prove himself, skulking around in bushes, but avoiding eavesdropping while his employer makes time with the governess, and failing to figure out how a second threatening note manages to mysteriously appear on the premises. At the dinner to celebrate Jacqueline’s engagement, Favraux makes a toast, sips his wine, and promptly drops dead. Cocantin is now uncertain whether or not he should reveal the existence of the letters (!).

Only seconds to live.

It’s a little too early for me to say how I feel about this series so far. I found “Les Vampires,” on the whole, a bit uneven compared to “Fantômas,” although it had its good aspects, including Mazamette, Musidora, and some very memorable visuals and outrageous crimes. It seems like silent fans always end up picking a “favorite” Feuillade serial, and I wouldn’t be surprised if “Fantômas” remains unbowed in that position for me. But, I am excited to see a new one from him, to see how this plays out, and to see how Bout-de-Zan makes an appearance. Some people credit “Judex” with inventing the whole “caped crusader” concept that led to Batman, the Shadow, and other superhero vigilantes, so this could be an important piece of nerd history.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: André Glatti, Léon Klausse

Starring: Louis Leubas, Jean Devalde, Musidora, Yvette Andréyor, Georges Flateau, Olinda Mano, Gaston Michel, Marcel Lévesque, Édouard Mathé

Run Time: 36 Min

You can watch it for free: here.

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November 12, 2016

The Bloody Wedding (1916)

Alternate Titles: The Terrible Wedding, Les noces sanglantes

We finally reach the last chapter of the serial “Les Vampires” by Louis Feuillade. Although this episode ends with a kind of resolution, it doesn’t differ all that much in structure from the previous chapters of the story.

A happy couple.

One change is that, whereas previously episodes had little time lapse between them, in this case the story picks up several months after the last one. Philippe Guérande (Édouard Mathé), the reporter-hero of the story, is now married to Jane (Louise Lagrange). We don’t even get to see a wedding! Philippe writes an obscure article about how the Vampires have been quiet lately, but refers to some never-depicted crimes in which he can “detect their handiwork.” Then Augustine (Germaine Rouer), the widow of the poisoned concierge from the previous episode, stops by for a visit. Guérande hires her as a housemaid at Jane’s suggestion, to help her through her difficult time. Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque) stops over and appears very happy at this news.

A grieving widow.

We learn, however, that the Vampires are spying on Augustine by crawling on the rooftop and watching through the skylight. They see her trying to predict her fortune with cards, something which Jane disapproves of. So, they send her an anonymous invitation from a fortune teller who promises to reveal “the mysteries that surround you.” Of course, what she really wants is information that will lead to the capture of the Vampires. So, she lies to Guérande and says she is going to visit her husband’s grave, but actually goes to the fortune teller. Fortunately, Mazamette is now smitten with her, and follows her secretly, discovering the location she is really visiting. Irma Vep (Musidora) and another Vampire put on a show of spiritualism for her, pretending to be visions of themselves so that she will believe in the fortune teller’s powers, and then hypnotize her so that she will admit them to Guérande’s apartment. Mazamette confronts her on the way out, but doesn’t see any Vampires, so doesn’t really think anything is wrong.

A jealous suitor.

That night, Irma Vep and Venomous, the new head Vampire (Frederik Moriss), show up with an apparatus for filling a room with poison gas. Augustine lets them in under a trance and they attack her and tie her up, then attach the apparatus to the keyhole of Guérande’s bedroom, but Mazamette, who cannot sleep because his infatuation is so strong, sees all of this happen and hides behind an arras. Once they have begun to pump the gas, Mazamette fires his gun, and they run off in a panic. He switches off the device, and helps Guérande untie Augustine when he wakes up. Augustine, Mazamette and Guérande (still in his bedclothes) go to report to the police, and Jane is left alone with a pistol for protection. Venomous returns, trying to break into Jane’s bedroom with a glass-cutter, but she shoots at him and then goes to the window. A Vampire on the sidewalk below lassos her and pulls her down, thus capturing her and they drive off with her as a captive.

A nocturnal attack.

It takes quite a few hours for Mazamette and Guérande to rouse the police to make a raid on the fortune teller’s house, but eventually they all drive out together (without even checking at home first). Astonishingly, the Vampires are there, rather than some other hideout, so the police are able to roust them. Irma Vep escapes by winding a long rope around herself and spinning to the ground like a yo-yo. They leave a bomb (that never goes off) and manage to capture Augustine, who was brought along for some reason, so the whole thing is a failure anyway, except that Mazamette shoots at their car and causes an oil leak, giving him and Guérande a trail to follow. For some reason he goed alone, without calling in the police this time or even waiting for Mazamette. He finds Jane and Augustine held in a cell below the chateau and passes them a pistol. Then he goes away until nightfall.

A daring escape.

That night the Vampires are all drinking and celebrating the marriage of Irma Vep and Venomous. No one is guarding the prisoners or the chateau, so Guérande knots a rope and ties it a second story balcony in preparation for an escape. The police raid the party and a gun battle breaks out, and most of the Vampires wind up on the balcony, which Guérande now causes to collapse with the rope. Venomous and his lackeys are killed in the crash. Irma Vep, meanwhile, runs down to the hostages and threatens them with a gun. Jane shoots her with the pistol Guérande gave her and he runs in to find them over her body. A few days later, Mazamette proposes to Augustine and all ends on a happy note.

A lively dance.

As I said above, this episode is a lot like the others, in that we see various captures and escapes, and the trade-off between hunter and hunted, as the story proceeds. There are the usual leaps in logic: Why did Venomous and Irma Vep go back to the fortune teller’s house, when they know the police will get that information? Why doesn’t Guérande have better security by now? Why does it take so long for the police to organize either of the raids? We’ve gotten used to the idea that Mazamette is estranged from the wife he had at the beginning of the story, but it still seems odd that he starts stalking the widow so soon after her bereavement. Also, the idea that you could follow a trail of motor oil on city streets is pretty hard to credit – anyone leaking that much oil wouldn’t get far.

An unlikely discovery.

In all, I would rate “Les Vampires” a little lower than “Fantômas,” not least because of the lack of a truly effective villain. The Vampires go through three leaders (or four, if we can count Moréno), none of whom really seems as diabolically brilliant as Fantômas. The one consistent thread is Irma Vep, who I must admit makes up for it somewhat with her powerful presence. Musidora is at times sultry and seductive, at others snarling and animalistic, and always seems dedicated to crime and evil. Unfortunately, she also seems to be more of a girlfriend than a leader. She’s always “with” the head Vampire, never taking charge herself. On the other side of the law, Juve wasn’t a great hero, but he’s a darn sight better than Guérande. Mazamette is the character we care about on that side of the team, but he’s ultimately a sidekick as well.

A tense situation.

That’s all from the point of view of the script, but in terms of filmmaking Feuillade does show some interesting improvements in “Les Vampires” over “Fantômas.” There’s much more use of close-ups and different camera angles, rather than proscenium-style set pieces, for example. The editing has improved as well. For example, in this episode the sequence in which Venomous tries to get in the window to get Jane is cross-cut in a wonderfully suspenseful manner that actually had me tense to the point of yelling at the screen. The audience knows that Jane has a gun, and we see her see Venomous’s hand at the window, but Feuillade keeps cutting back and forth and we wonder if she has the courage to shoot right up to the last moment. It’s a sequence worthy of Alfred Hitchcock, and there was nothing like it in “Fantômas.” The first police raid also includes some good cross-cutting between the police and the villains, although that was sort of ruined when the bomb didn’t go off.

I probably won’t return to this series as often as I do to “Fantômas,” but it’s been good to see Feuillade’s further development. Next, I’ll have to move on to “Judex!”

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Frederik Moriss, Marcel Lévesque, Musidora, Louise Lagrange, Germaine Rouer

Run Time: 55 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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November 5, 2016

The Poison Man (1916)

Halloween has come and gone, but I’m not yet finished with the crime serial called “Les Vampires!” In this episode, a new Grand Master takes charge of the Vampires’ ongoing quest to snuff out Mazamette and Philipe Guérande, but Irma Vep still gets most of the screen time.

Venemous at work.

At the beginning of the movie, we establish “Venemous,” (played by Frederik Moriss) the “brilliant but deranged chemist” who is the new Grand Master of the Vampires, hard at work in his chemical laboratory, assisted by Irma Vep (Musidora). He receives a message with invisible ink on it, revealing it by brushing it with a special chemical. It states that Guérande (Édouard Mathé) is engaged to be wed to Jane Bremontier (Louise Lagrange), and that he visits his fiancée every day. He sends Irma Vep and two female collaborators to rent the apartment above Bremontier’s. They are able to learn about an upcoming dinner party and get the proposed menu from a maid. Venemous now calls the caterer and cancels the order, substituting Vampires for the caterers on the night of the event.

A generous tenant

On the day of the party, the Vampires are admitted and allowed to prepare and serve the meal. However, Jane’s mother gives a bottle of the champagne to the concierge to thank him for helping to bring up the food from the delivery, and when he tastes it, he dies! His wife runs up to the party to warn everyone not to drink the champagne, which no one has touched yet because Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque) is making a very long-winded toast. The Vampires in the kitchen realize the gig is up and escape out the window, but Venemous, who is dressed as a valet, must hide in a cabinet in the dining room. Mazamette tries to catch him in the dark, but winds up fighting with Guérande instead. Venemous is also able to escape over the rooftops of Paris.

Now Guérande becomes convinced that he must move his fiancée to the country in order to hide her, but Irma Vep sees the car arrive to pick them up and takes a perfume bottle full of sleeping gas to surprise them. Mazamette has been hiding in a trunk on the side of the car, however, and he attacks her. Irma Vep is able to spray him with the gas and her accomplices remove him. Then, she hides in the trunk. Mazamette is dumped on the street and taken to the police station, believed to be drunk. When he wakens, he calls Philipe to warn him, but Irma slips out of the box and gets away in the car before Philipe can catch her.

Musidora is horizontal for much of the film.

Irma Vep now finds herself at a fancy restaurant in the Fontainebleau forest. She summons Venemous by telephone, but Guérande turns up first and attacks her, tying her up and leaving her on the road as a car approaches (almost a rare case of a woman tied to train tracks!). The car contains Mazamette, who stops at first to assist the damsel in distress before recognizing her. Guérande has been waiting nearby with a pistol, and now he joins his friend. They put Irma Vep in Mazamette’s car and go to lie in wait for the arrival of the Grand Master of the Vampires at the restaurant. However, when he arrives, Irma Vep honks the horn with her head and he finds her there and they drive off together in Mazamette’s car, with Guérande and Mazamette in pursuit in his car.

You’re doing it wrong! You’re ruining it for me!

After a lively chase, Venomous leaps out of the vehicle; Philipe chases Venomous on foot, following him onto the top of a moving train, but Venomous gets away, shooting him in the leg. Mazamette has been restrained from jumping onto the train by two well-meaning policemen, and he punches one of them. He is held for assaulting an officer, but when Guérande shows up and strikes him in the police station, the police decide to forget the whole affair.

I found this episode to be more visually satisfying than most of the others, in part because so much of it is shot on location in the streets of Paris or the forest of Fontainebleau. We get some nice blue tinting on the night shots. Also, there was a good amount of close-ups, including on Mazamette and Guérande when they first enter the darkened room, and some good camera angles when, at various times, Irma Vep is lying on the ground, and in order to see the figures escaping across the rooftops. Finally, the editing of the chase sequence was very satisfying, including some classic cross-cutting, even though I’ve seen critics who claim Feuillade never used any. The chase across the top of a train was, of course, similar to many Westerns that had already been released, beginning with “The Great Train Robbery,” but it is handled well here also.

This is how Mazamette rolls.

I usually criticize some aspects of the strained logic in each episode, but this one has only minor departures from logic. The biggest is that, since we’ve already established that Guérande is a teetotaler, it doesn’t make much sense to put poison only in his champagne, instead of the rest of the meal. Of course, it may well be that even a truly sober Frenchman has to sip a little champagne at his own engagement, so maybe that was safe. I was a little surprised that Venemous himself turned up at the party in the guise of a butler, but at this point we’ve gotten used to the Grand Vampires taking ridiculous and unnecessary personal risks, so we’ll give that a pass as well. There’s a somewhat silly bit when a figure in Vampire disguise climbs up a drainpipe – in order to deliver a perfume bottle in Irma Vep. Surely the front door would work just as well. The one part that doesn’t make much sense to me is why is Mazamette riding in the trunk in the first place? Surely the Vampires are going to assume that he is wherever Guérande and his fiancée are, so it doesn’t seem like it would really help much in terms of security. Still, it’s a minor point and doesn’t interfere much with the enjoyment of this episode.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque, Musidora, Frederik Moriss, Louise Lagrange, Florense Simoni

Run Time: 50 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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October 29, 2016

The Lord of Thunder (1916)

This week’s episode of “Les Vampires” continues the serial’s pattern of capture-and-escape, with the emphasis on the villains this time out. Musidora, as Irma Vep, manages to have a record number of wardrobe changes, and Mazamette (Marcel L é vesque) remembers that he has a family.

Irma Vep in her prison uniform.

This episode begins where the last one ended – with Moréno and Irma Vep in the custody of police and Satanas (Louis Leubas), the true Grand Master of the Vampires, still at large and unknown to the heroes. Irma is informed that her lover has been executed for his crimes, and that she will be transferred to a prison colony in Algeria for life. Satanas reads this news as well, and disguises himself as a priest, taking a hotel room with a view of the ocean in Montmartre. He then visits the women’s prison, distributing religious literature, but Irma Vep is able to decode a message in her pamphlet that warns her to leap into the ocean, because the boat will be destroyed by an explosion. Satanas then returns to the hotel, where his cohorts have been building one of his handy transportable cannons, and he destroys the ship with a single shell.

Irma Vep, in her traveling-to-Algeria getup.

Meanwhile, Philippe Guérande has managed to use the codebook he got from the Grand Inquisitor in episode 2 to figure out that the shell must have been fired from Montmartre. Mazamette, who has dropped by to let him and his mother know that he is being considered for the “academic palms,” offers to investigate. He is unsuccessful on his first day, but then his son Eustache (played by Bout-de-Zan) arrives, having been expelled from school for bad behavior. The two of them dress as garbage pickers and return to Montmartre, where they find a cannon shell being delivered to the Grand Master of the Vampires in a hat box.

Satanas stops by Guérande’s house and uses his paralyzing pin to immobilize him while secreting a time bomb in a top hat to blow up the apartment. He sticks a note to Guérande’s collar that proclaims that he has been condemned to avenge the death of Irma Vep. Mazamette arrives in time to see Satanas leaping from the window of the apartment into a waiting getaway car, then is able to find the ticking top hat and dispose of it before it explodes, saving the day. He announces that he now has the address of the Grand Master of the Vampires.

Eustache and Mazamette return to Montmartre and attempt to sneak in to Satanas’s home, but Satanas uses a peephole hidden in a mask on the wall to see what they are doing and locks Mazamette into a chest, while threatening Eustache, who pulls out a gun and shoots at Satanas. Satanas acts as if he was hit, but then gets up and grabs the child, when suddenly thee police break down the door and apprehend him. Mazamette is rescued from the chest, but his face is covered with blood – somehow Eustache’s bullet hit him in the nose!

Meanwhile, Irma Vep has escaped from the shell after all, and turns up at a railroad station, fainting from hunger and weakness. The railyard workers help her to recover and take up a collection for her, charmed by a phony story of a romantic tragedy that she makes up. She then heads back to the nightclub we saw in episode three, and announces her survival by performing on the stage – the assembled Vampires all recognize her voice. She is taken to the hideout in victory and a couple perform an Apache Dance in her honor. Then, the news of Satanas’s arrest comes, and Venomous (Fredrik Moriss), a “brilliant but deranged chemist” announces that he has been deputized to lead the gang in such a circumstance. They mail a seemingly innocuous letter to Satanas, which Satanas eats to commit suicide.

Irma Vep, in her “riding-the-rails” outfit.

We’re certainly going through the villains quickly in this serial! Only Irma Vep seems to survive, while the male leaders of the gang fall like flies. I found Satanas to be at least as dull of a villain as the old Master Vampire was, though, so no great loss here. I have some hope for the “deranged chemist,” Venomous, for these final chapters. The scene where Irma Vep arrived at the train station was somewhat shocking to me – because Louis Feuillade had Musidora lie on the tracks while an actual train passed overhead! A very dangerous stunt, luckily she was thin enough to pull it off without injury. The arrival of Bout-de-Zan was quite a thrill as well, although he didn’t have all that much to do in this episode, besides shooting his father in the nose, and we didn’t get much of a sense of the playful troublemaking that made him a huge star. Also, the shots of the ship blowing up appeared to be taken from actual footage of naval warfare, suggesting that this was one of the first movies to cut stock footage into its storyline.

Irma Vep’s not even sure where these clothes came from.

And, now, let’s pause to consider the logic of the story, as always. OK, so assuming that you can transport a cannon in pieces inside of a couple of large trunks, what are the chances you can fire it out a hotel window without getting reported to the authorities? No one complained about the noise? Montmartre must be a pretty raucous place for no one to have minded cannon fire! Also, Mazamette is remarkably fortunate in this episode: not only does he just happen to literally stumble upon a cannon shell being delivered to a particular address, he takes a bullet to the nose that fortunately didn’t go into his brain! Finally, I certainly wouldn’t be eager to advance in a criminal gang with such a high death rate among its leadership. Given the frequency with which they escape from the police as well, it would seem some kind of rescue would be attempted before sending the “poison pen” letter to Satanas.

Irma Vep goes incognito.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Musidora, Marcel Levésque, René Poyen, Louis Leubas, Fredrik Moriss, Florense Simoni, Renée Carl

Run Time: 51 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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October 22, 2016

Satanas (1916)

This week’s episode of “Les Vampires” tries to inject new blood into the serial by introducing a new, more sinister villain, and also alludes to the horrors of the First World War by giving him a cannon to conduct his malevolent will. Of course, it is designed more as a crime-adventure film than a horror movie, much less a Satanic movie, but the title alone earns it a place in my October history of horror.

Musidora goes as Cleopatra this Halloween

The movie’s opening takes us back to the penultimate scene of the previous episode, where Irma Vep (Musidora) and Moréno (Fernand Herrmann) have just killed the Grand Vampire. They stuff him into a trunk and prepare to dump the body, when there is a mysterious ring of the doorbell. The man outside is an older man (Louis Leubas), and he prepares before going in by putting a glove over a spike tied to his hand so that it points out from the palm. He tells them that he knows what they have in the trunk, and when Moréno tries to eject him, he stabs him with the spike, which contains a paralyzing poison. He informs Moréno that he is the true leader of the Vampires, the man they just killed was an “underling.” Then he leaves them to dump the body in the river.

That night, Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque) is carousing with two girls and a male friend at a cabaret owned by Moréno’s gang. Apparently, he has quite forgotten the wife and children of the first episode, because the girls are hanging all over him and he does not protest. When Moréno and Irma Vep arrive at the club, Moréno receives a card telling him that the Grand Vampire will demonstrate his power at 2AM. We see the Grand Vampire, who apparently has an office below the cabaret, pull a large cannon out of a secret cabinet, load it, and, at precisely 2AM, he fires it, destroying the cabaret (but somehow not injuring Moréno or Irma).

A well-appointed office.

Philipe Guérande (Édouard Mathé) now decides to pay a late-night call on Mazamette, but finds only the butler there, concerned over his master’s late hours. When Mazamette returns, Guérande hides behind a curtain and listens as he entertains his guests. When the man starts going through his things without permission, Mazamette becomes annoyed and pulls a gun on him and the girls. They switch off the lights and run out (you’d think opening the door would create a silhouette, but Mazamette behaves as if he can see nothing while the light is out). When he turns on the light, he sees Guérande’s shoes beneath the curtain, and shoots blindly at the figure hiding there, making me think of Hamlet and Polonius, but fortunately Guérande has been squatting down behind the curtain, so the bullets pass harmlessly over his head.

Never stab an arras.

The next morning, Irma Vep and Moréno go to surrender to the true Grand Vampire, but he offers them a job instead. He wants them to steal from George Baldwin (Émile Keppens), a billionaire American who is staying at a Paris hotel. Moréno calls on his friend Fleur-de-Lys (Suzanne Delvé), who was one of the girls Mazamette was running around with the night before. She goes to Baldwin’s hotel and poses as a magazine reporter collecting signatures, and she gets Baldwin to sign a piece of paper. Then Irma Vep shows up with a bulky Edison cylinder-recorder and asks him to speak the only French phrase he knows into it: “Paris has the most charming women” adding on, “All right!” in English at the end. Now, Moréno uses the signature to forge a check to Fleur-de-Lys in the amount of $100,000, and sends her to cash it at a local bank. Irma Vep, meanwhile, kidnaps the switchboard operator at Baldwin’s hotel and infiltrates as her replacement. So, when the cashier at the bank gets suspicious about so large a withdrawal and calls the hotel, she plays back the cylinder recording of Baldwin praising Parisian girls, and the cashier decides Fleur-de-Lys is a high class call girl and gives her the money.

At this point Mazamette walks into the bank and sees Fleur-de-Lys getting the cash and recognizes her from the cabaret. He disguises himself by pretending to have a toothache and follows her. He sees her turn the money over to Moréno and calls Guérande, who joins him at the home of Fleur-de-Lys. They threaten her with guns to make her talk about the robbery, but she, probably realizing that they wouldn’t dare shoot, refuses to say anything until they call Moréno on the phone and threaten her with arrest instead. She now tells Moréno to come over immediately. He has, meanwhile, taken the money to the Grand Vampire, who tells him to keep it, no doubt to build the morale of this highly useful follower. Now, Moréno and Irma go to the home of Fleur-de-Lys, but as soon as they walk in the door, they fall through a huge trapdoor into a bag in a basement full of police! Mazamette and Guérande congratulate themselves on capturing the desperate criminals, who are taken into custody, from which they will doubtless escape in the next episode.

This was an episode entirely without murders, unless Irma Vep killed the switchboard operator offscreen (possible). I was quite surprised when the new Grand Vampire only paralyzed Moréno, I thought he was dead when he got stabbed. I also thought the cannon would kill him, so this was an episode of lucky escapes for him or considerable mercy for the Grand Vampire. I said at the beginning that he seems to have been brought in to rejuvenate the series somewhat – the old GV (Jean Aymé) was sort of lame, and he kept getting defeated by Moréno’s ingenuity. Mazamette continues to be the more interesting and active hero, but his apparent abandonment of his family in his time of good fortune is disappointing. Even the butler says so!

Closing the lid on a lame villain.

So, for this week’s roundup of logical inconsistencies, we can start with Guérande’s narrow escape. Who would crouch down so low while eavesdropping and why? Wouldn’t his knees tend to make a big bulge in the curtain? And, really Mazamette, don’t shoot at people you can’t see clearly enough to identify, that never ends well. The crazier leap-of-logic, though, is the giant trap door that Guérande and Mazamette use to capture the villains. So, Fleur-de-Lys happens to live in a building with that trap door built into its lobby? How did they know that? Or, are we meant to believe that they cut that hole in the floor while Moréno and Irma Vep came over from their place? How will they pay back the building’s owners for all the damage? Either way, it’s wonderfully absurd.

Director: Louise Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque, Musidora, Fernand Herrmann, Louis Leubas, Suzanne Delvé, Émile Keppens

Run Time: 43 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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October 15, 2016

The Eyes That Mesmerize (1916)

Alternate Titles: Hypnotic Eyes, Les yeux qui fascinent

This installment in the crime serial “Les Vampires” involves hypnotism, cross-dressing, and murder, as well as a hard-to-follow plot that strains credulity while being hard to predict. In other words, it’s a lot like other episodes of the series.

Focus! Focus!

The movie begins by telling us that more than two weeks have passed since the events of “The Corpse’s Escape,” and that a notary has been killed at Fontainebleau. We also learn that Juan-Jose Moréno (Fernand Hermann) is a master of mesmerism, and he now brings his maid into the parlor and hypnotizes her, causing her to go into a deep trance. Then, Mazamette (Marcel Levésque) and Guérande (Édouard Mathé) decide to attend the movies. They see a story about the recent murder, and recognize Irma Vep (Musidora) and the Grand Vampire (Jean Aymé) in the footage. Immediately, they rush out of the theater and make plans to go to Fontainebleau. Along the way, they happen to see a visiting American named Warner galloping at high speed on his horse to a remote spot. They follow him and see him hide a box among some boulders, which they recover after he has left. At their hotel, they discover that it is $200,000, which was stolen from an American millionaire named Baldwin, who has posted a considerable reward for its recovery and the capture of Raphael Norton, the man who stole it. They realize that Warner is Norton in disguise.

This has nothing to do with the plot.

Meanwhile, the Grand Vampire is now disguised as a Count named “Kerlor” and Irma Vep accompanies him as a young (male) Viscount called “Guy.” They also figure out who Warner is (he’s not at all good at keeping secrets) and plan to rob him of the money. Moréno manages to get the room between “Kerlor” and “Warner,” although he has no idea what is going on, and he has brought a very large trunk along with him. The Count tells a rather silly story about a supposed ancestor of his who had to fight two bulls during the Napoleonic Wars (we see the whole thing played out). This somehow distracts the Warners while Irma Vep gets into her Vampire costume and searches Warner’s room until she finds the map. Of course, she is accosted by Moréno, who knocks her out with chloroform and drops her out the window to his gang waiting below. They bundle her into a car and drive off. Meanwhile, Moréno takes his hypnotized maid out of the trunk (!) and disguises her as Irma Vep, then has her give the map to the Grand Vampire in that disguise.

The Grand Vampire now swings into action, sending his confederate (Miss Édith) to go find the loot indicated on the map. She gets there and finds instead a note from Guérande, inviting the legitimate owner of the box to meet with him. Then she gets captured by Moréno, who tells her to tell the Grand Vampire that he is holding Irma Vep and will release her for a ransom. She reports all of this to the Grand Vampire, who decides to get out because Guérande might have called the police, but plans to try to recover Irma Vep anyway. In the early morning, the police raid the hotel and find that Warner is actually Norton, so Guérande and Mazamette win the reward. Moréno falls in love with Irma and decides not to return her to the Grand Vampire. Instead, he hypnotizes her and causes her to write a confession of her various crimes, then orders her to kill the Grand Vampire, which she does with dispatch, as soon as he walks in the door.

Don’t mess with Irma Vep

The episode ends with the now-rich Mazamette giving a press interview to his friend Guérande and other reporters, assuring them that, “though vice is sometimes slow to be punished, virtue is always rewarded.”

Since there are no actual vampires in the series, I am usually forced to stretch things a bit to justify my inclusion of it in my annual October “history of horror.” In this case, the connection is hypnotism, which has been a theme of horror writing and cinema since Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemaar.” When Mesmer first began convincing the educated world that hypnotism was a real psychological phenomenon, and not just a parlor trick, Europeans became frightened at the possibility of a strong will dominating a weak one. What if crimes could be committed while under hypnosis, even murder? Feuillade plays on that theme in this film by causing the weak-minded maid to become a virtual robot, and Irma Vep to switch allegiances from the Grand Vampire to Moréno. In that case, however, I’m not certain mental dominance was necessary: she appears to me to have chosen to abandon the less successful master criminal for the one who has really become the focus of the story for the last two episodes. If the Grand Vampire is really dead, though, I’m not sure how they can justify calling the rest of the serial “Les Vampires.”

How far would you trust this woman?

And now for my usual nit-picky logical questioning of the plot. OK, so Moréno hires a girl who looks sort of vaguely like Irma Vep to be his maid, hypnotises her and carries her into the country in a trunk…so she can wear a mask for a few seconds and give the Grand Vampire something Irma Vep was going to give him anyway? How did he know in advance to have her wear a Vampire costume? How did he manage to get the right room when everyone was using assumed names? How did he know to station his gangsters outside the window with a net just at the moment he was going to push her out the window? And why did we have to watch that silly bullfighting sequence? Anyway, I’m glad Mazamette finally has enough money to send all his children through school. Hopefully the adventures of Musidora and Moréno will continue to thrill us next week.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Marcel Levésque, Musidora, Fernand Hermann, Jean Aymé, Miss Édith, Maxa

Run Time: 58 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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October 8, 2016

The Corpse’s Escape (1916)

Alternate Titles: Les vampires: L’évasion du mort, The Dead Man’s Escape

This chapter of “Les Vampires” continues the cycle of capture-and-escape without doing much to advance the storyline, although it includes some references to earlier work of Feuillade and his mentor, Alice Guy-Blaché. The title as well as the plot seem to flirt with horror tropes, without actually becoming a horror film as we would understand the concept now.

At the end of the last movie, the Grand Vampire (Jean Aymé) and Irma Vep (Musidora) had managed to elude capture and rob the spoils of their “colleague” Moréno (Fernand Herrmann), while he was arrested. At the outset of this episode, Moréno is being interrogated by the magistrate when he produces a pill and announces that he’d rather die than go to prison. He takes the pill, and a doctor pronounces him dead without an examination after hearing the magistrate describe what happened. The “body” is moved to a holding cell until the morgue attendants can come pick it up, and of course Moréno gets up and cold-cocks a guard in order to escape.

The heroic Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque) is up late at night watering his plants when he sees Moréno and his lackeys go into a nearby warehouse. He has the presence of mind to take a piece of clay to make a mold of the lock of that warehouse, just in case he ever wants to sneak around in there. Meanwhile, the intrepid, tepid Philippe Guérande (played by, yawn, Édouard Mathé) pauses in his writeup of the escape to look out the window, and is suddenly hooked around the neck and pulled down to the street below, where a gang of Vampires put him into a wicker basket with a Gaumont symbol on the side. He waits until they place the basket near some stairs, then tips it over and tumbles down to another street, where some good Samaritan passers-by open it and free him. He discovers the name of the costume company that rented the basket on another side, away from the Gaumont symbol.

In investigating that company, he finds that the basket was rented by a Baron de Mortesalgues, yet another alias of the Grand Vampire. Unfortunately, Moréno was also present at the costume company, since he needed some phony police uniforms for another heist, and he takes advantage of the opportunity to nab Guérande and drags him back to the warehouse. He tells Guérande that he’ll let him go if he gives him a way to get revenge on the Grand Vampire for stealing his stolen loot, and Guérande tells him the Baron’s identity. Once Moréno leaves, Guérande is quickly rescued by Mazamette.

The Baron is having a big society do for his “niece,” who is actually Irma Vep. They dose the guests with sleeping gas and emerge with other members of the Vampires in full costume to loot their wallets and jewels. However, Moréno is able to jump on top of the getaway car and throws the luggage containing the loot off the roof, then jumps off himself, and goes back to collect it all. Mazamette visits Guérande and accuses him of being “too honest,” (after flirting shamelessly with the maid – careful Mazamette, we know you have a wife and children!) but Guérande shows him a quote about focusing on the end result and Mazamette agrees to continue the fight.

Good thing we wore masks so none of these sleeping people can identify us!

The beginning of this episode was like a less-interesting version of “The Murderous Corpse” with Moréno substituting for Fantômas. Even the prison set is identical. I’m not sure why it was necessary to bring in a second master criminal for this series – perhaps because the hero was too bland? It seems to distract from focusing on the Vampires, and this episode has far too little of Musidora as a result. We do get a good amount of Mazamette, however, which is a consolation, and I love the little pantomime Lévesque performs to make certain we understand that he’s copied the key. The sequence with Guérande in the basket reminded me of “The Drunken Mattress” and other surreal comedies by Alice Guy where a person is trapped in an inanimate object which seems to develop a life and personality of its own.

Obligatory-but-admittedly-silly-logic-department: In this movie, we are led to believe that the Grand Vampire can convince half of the wealthy people in Paris to attend a party for his alias’s “niece.” Either he has somehow found time to build an identity and attend social functions for years in order to lure them to his home and rob them of whatever they brought with them (really a pretty petty theft) OR he was able to con them just by putting the word “Baron” before a name. Also, in this movie, we see Guérande pulled down from his apartment one story to the ground below, but in “The Red Cryptogram” we saw Musidora and the Grand Vampire escape out that same window to the rooftops of Paris, quite a bit higher up than a single story. Which is it?

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Édouard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque, Musidora, Jean Aymé, Fernand Herrmann

Run Time: 38 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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October 1, 2016

The Spectre (1916)

It’s October once again, and with that I continue my history of horror. I covered all of the 1915 episodes of “Les Vampires” last year at this time, and so now I continue with the episodes released in 1916. Strictly speaking, this isn’t a horror film, since the vampires in it are just a gang of ordinary master criminals, but since the imagery and atmosphere has been influential in the horror genre since then, I include it for consideration at this time of year. Hang on to your hats, as usual the plot is ridiculously complex!

This episode begins by introducing us to yet another of the alter-egos of the Grand Vampire (Jean Aymé), a successful real estate agent by the name of Treps. One day a new client, a businessman named Juan-José Moréno (Fernand Herrmann), comes to his office and requests an apartment with a safe. This arouses Treps’s greed, and he and Irma Vep (Musidora) break into the safe by way of a connecting door in the wall from the adjoining apartment. All they find, however, is a satchel full of the same type of black costume the vampires use during criminal activities. They conclude that he is a “colleague” and put the satchel back.

Musidora is meanwhile working for a bank under the alias of Juliet Berteaux. She learns of an upcoming transfer of 300,000 francs to be carried out by a “carefree” man named Metadier who likes to watch Gaumont films in the evenings. However, should Metadier be unable to perform his duties, she will be the substitute. So, she and the Grand Vampire attack Metadier on the train on the way home from the movies and kill him with a hatpin, dumping his body from the moving train. The next day, as she goes to get the money, suddenly the “specter” of Metadier walks in and takes it! The Grand Vampire follows him, but he escapes down a manhole.

In addition to Irma Vep, apparently Gomez Addams works at this bank

When the intrepid but largely ineffectual Philipe Guérande (Edouard Mathé) learns of the theft, he goes to the bank office in disguise and recognizes Musidora. He is able to learn her alias and address, and has his agent Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque) distract the maid so that he can sneak in. Musidora and the Grand Vampire, saddened at their failed heist, decide to look in Moréno’s safe to see if he’s had any success. They are startled when the body of Metadier falls out and even more surprised to find the 300,000 francs! Guérande now arrives and tries to take them captive, but of course the maid hits him on the head and they easily escape with the money. He wakes up and calls the police just before Moréno returns to find his safe broken into. Guérande holds Moréno and learns the true story: he was casing a villa for a robbery when he found the body of Metadier on the tracks, and found the note authorizing him to take the money. He then took the corpse home with him, disguised himself as Metadier and stole the envelope. Guérande hands him over to the police.

Once again, the plot advances with no obvious resolution in sight: the Vampires killed a man and bungled a job, but still wound up with the money and Guérande is no closer to apprehending them. I liked this episode, though, because we got a lot of Musidora and not too much Guérande, although there wasn’t enough Mazamette for my taste. My usual logical criticism of the plot: it seems like the Vampires have to spend an awful lot of time working straight jobs in order to arrange their devious crimes. How exactly does one become a “successful real estate agent” when one only has a few days a month not wearing some other disguise? I think director Louis Feuillade handles the pacing and story complexity well. I’ve read some criticism recently that claims Feuillade always edited sequentially and never made use of inter-cutting between scenes. While that may be technically true, he does use cross-cutting here to show simultaneous actions in the adjoining apartments (maybe this could be seen as a single scene), and there’s good use of close-ups, location shots in Paris, and establishing shots that set up interiors. Also, he uses his triple-split-screen effect again to demonstrate a phone conversation, as he did in “The Dwarf.” Watching a Feuillade crime serial feels sort of like coming home: I more or less re-started this project when I watched “Fantômas” in 2014.

Director: Louis Feuillade

Camera: Manichoux

Starring: Jean Aymé, Musidora, Fernand Herrmann, Eduoard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque

Run Time: 40 Min

You can watch it for free: here (no music) or here (with music).

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February 28, 2016

Best Costume Design 1915

The clothing we wear affects how others see us and how we see ourselves. An actor’s body language and character can be directly influenced by their outfit, and time periods are established for the audience at least as much through clothing as through scenery. The movies selected for this year’s award for costume design all reflect the importance of this art to the motion pictures.

In “Trilby,” a bohemian subculture is established through clothing, and the development of the main character is shown through her wardrobe changes. In the “Les Vampires” episode called “The Deadly Ring” exotic costumes contrast with the day-to-day norms of Parisian culture. Theda Bara got to display some of the hottest fashions of 1915 in “A Fool There Was.” The Civil War era comes alive in the costumes of “The Coward.” And, although it is remembered today for the innovation of female nudity, the diverse costumes of Lois Weber’s “Hypocrites” help establish the archetypal nature of its characters.

The nominees for Best Costume Design of 1915 are…

And the winner is…”The Deadly Ring!”

As with last year, when I gave the award to Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” outfit, again I chose what must be seen as one of the most iconic images of 1915 cinema, the famous bat-suit worn by Stacia Naperkowska for her brief and fatal dance sequence. While the other costumes in this movie owe a great deal to its “Fantômas” predecessor, the glamorous evening clothes of Jean Ayme and the Grand Inquisitor’s understated but official costume also earn a mention.

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Century Film Project

Tag: Edouard Mathe

December 24, 2016

The Mysterious Shadow (1916)

December 22, 2016

Judex – Prologue (1916)

November 12, 2016

The Bloody Wedding (1916)

November 5, 2016

The Poison Man (1916)

October 29, 2016

The Lord of Thunder (1916)

October 22, 2016

Satanas (1916)

October 15, 2016

The Eyes That Mesmerize (1916)

October 8, 2016

The Corpse’s Escape (1916)

October 1, 2016

The Spectre (1916)

February 28, 2016

Best Costume Design 1915