Are you implying that Fantômas is a joker?
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, they had lost the plot by this one. Leaning too hard into decidedly French, drawn out gags about seances and bunched up kilts and spooky castle ghost stories at the expense of murderous Fantômas action and scheming, it can be a bit dull. Still, some nice tension from a plot to extort the world’s ultra-rich with a life tax, causing these scions to play the bumbling…
We’re the first ones to have a deep-frozen houseboy.
Happy (belated) birthday to the legend. Upping to the full five. If we’re ever allowed to congregate again, I’d program this, Contempt, Zabriske Point, The Other Side of the Wind, and Let the Corpses Tan. (Alternates Purple Noon and City of Women.) With interstitials of Batman, Gillian’s Island, and Kamen Rider.
More a succession of one gag to the next than the first installment’s coherent whole that goes toe-to-toe with its own source material, Diabolik, and the actual Eon Bonds, but, then again, that’s how the books are. The sequence where the kids play the Fantômas prank through the dorm of sleeping tweens, though, is extremely inspired, channeling goth Suspiria vibes and predicting the proto-Burton Batman ones in the Chabrol/Bunuel miniseries to make a statement on the property’s core: the unfaithfulness…
Imagine watching that dragon show for the better part of a decade when Paul Verhoeven did it in 128 minutes in 1985. I can’t think of a better way to honor him than to watch one of Hauer’s, if you’ll excuse the pun, fleshier performances. Also zeitgeist channeling: A scathing indictment of classic Hollywood morality couched in all the trappings of classic Hollywood morality. Who knew!?
I’m a well organized man.
A masterclass in farce, intricately skewering its source material while still having its own bit to say. Every so often there’s a use of perspective and space that recalls Feuillade, but just enough. Never so much as to bog things down. As intentionally hokey as the make him, the corpse who kills is so blithe in his menace that he comes back around the other way to terrifying. A messy bitch who kills for drama! Stunts and practical effects are tedious until they’re breathtaking. The Discreet Charm of Lady Beltham. A radical tract against the police!
Like if the Hammer movies were Italian. Another formative text I didn’t quite connect with, but maybe that’s down to this being the American International cut? Gorgeous Kino print from the original 35mm; stark and stunning in gothic macabre. Bustin’ through the windows like Batman!
Kind of fucked up that out of Modesty Blaise, Matt Helm, Derek Flint, 60s Fantomas, and Diabolik all anyone re is Austin Powers. Absolutely wild that the art design, plotting, choreography, dialogue, and staging can all be at once so meticulous and so slipshod. The scene with the DS and the Cadillac doing ballet while belching neon smoke is the spiritual culmination of this.
A bit clunky in its resolution of so many disparate plot threads — don’t worry, Hollywood hasn’t gotten any better at this — but, ultimately, Robinson’s consummate professionalism, some prime noir blocking and cinematography, and an oddly sweet, perfectly sour intertwining rumination on sex politics win the day. The deaths manage to shock, even when it seems they shouldn’t.
A garish but gentle lark, skullduggery gives way to buffoonery, vinegar and light. Staged a bit too British to reach the heights of classic Wilder, but there are hints: castles stark against improbably blue Scottish skies atop the green, a tiny funeral procession through the hedgerow, that positively dripping -- pulsating! -- sleeper compartment. I've been following these exploits with great interest!