Jean Marais, who was most famous for his leading roles in Jean Cocteau’s films Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus, plays dual roles in this trilogy of supervillain crime films based on the pulp serials written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain in the 1910s. In Fantomas (1964), Marais is cynical reporter Fandor, who ridicules the police for blaming a crime wave on the mysterious criminal Fantomas. Fandor claims this figure does not exist, but soon enough, the masked villain comes for Fandor and when the former finally pulls off his mask he reveals the face of…Jean Marais. In fact, Fantomas is both a criminal genius and a master of disguise and he commits crimes wearing the faces of Fandor and Police Commissioner Juve (Louis de Funès), the bumbling head of police. Fantomas, made in the wake of the James Bond phenomenon was directed by André Hunebelle, a veteran of the French OSS 117 espionage knock-off series, who also helmed the two sequels. Marais, de Funès, and Mylène Demongeot (who plays Fandor’s girlfriend, newspaper photographer Hélène) return for Fantomas Unleashed (1965) and Fantomas vs. Scotland Yard (1967), which both lean even further into comedy. Unleashed features an array of comic Bond-like gadgets hatched by an even more inept Juve, and Scotland Yard drops the cast into a haunted house farce with Fantomas playing the ghost. These lighthearted supervillain larks—shot in brightly-colored CinemaScope—are hardly essential and become increasingly silly but they do have their fans. Extras include audio commentary by film historian Tim Lucas on Fantomas. Optional. (S. Axmaker)
Fantomas: Three Film Collection
Kino, 2 discs, 304 min., in French w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $39.99, Blu-ray: $49.99 Volume 34, Issue 5
Fantomas: Three Film Collection
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