Director: Louis Feuillade
Year: 1915-1916
Runtime: 10 films with a total of 6:57:00
Source: Kanopy
Feuillade immediately capitalized on the success of his first crime serial with a more ambitious follow-up. Les Vampires bears a lot of hallmarks of its rushed production. It's nearly identical to Fantomas in its broad outline - criminals with devious disguises (no actual vampires, I'm afraid), a plucky journalist hero, plenty of curtains - but this time, Feuillade was making it up as he went along, apparently letting his actors workshop much of the basic plot.
Contemporary critics considered it a classless genre flick at the time, but the public ate it up, and Les Vampires is now considered his finest and most influential work, the origin of the modern thriller. While Fantomas comprised a sequence of mostly self-contained detective stories (like the newspaper serial it was adapted from), Les Vampires is more of a true serial, with a serpentine plot, and a larger cast of characters with more interesting motives.
The Vampires are a cult-like criminal gang pursued by the journalist Phillippe Guerande. Although the Vampires are led by a succession of mostly interchangeable leaders, the true villain - and the real star of Les Vampires - would be the vixen Irma Vep, played by Jeanne Roques aka Musidora. Musidora had a face made for silent cinema: the dark outlines of her heavily made-up eyes over her pale white face give her a wonderfully deranged look. She always offers a hint of her true nature even as she disguises herself as a demure maid or bank clerk. The other real highlight is Mazamette (Marcel Levesque), the former Vampire and Guerande's comic-relief sidekick, who solves a great majority of the mysteries due to his mysterious powers of coincidence, always happening upon some great crime about to be committed. He acts like an odd vaudevillian mashup of Charlie Chaplin and Poirot, but I found his odd mannerisms to be delightful and a reminder not to take the plot too seriously.
The cinematography is much more dynamic this time around, and though I miss the long, luxurious, and theatrical shots, the greater pacing is able to hold a great deal more excitement, though not always much dramatic tension. There's a madcap energy to many of these films that can be truly fun - many of the climactic scenes involve the heros whipping out tiny derringers hidden away in the palms of their hands, with instantly appearing smoke drifts replacing the cracks of gunshots. There are also a few action scenes that verge on Buster Keaton-level slapstick, such as the protagonist fleeing his captors by rapidly tumbling down a set of stairs in a wicker basket. Unfortunately, Feuillade is less successful at slowly building suspense, since he usually can't help but give away the main plot twist to each mystery in the opening scene.
Ultimately, I find it hard to decide whether I prefer Les Vampires or Fantomas. Fantomas is more consistent, and feels more cinematic. Les Vampires has two very strong performers in Musidora and Levesque, and is more like a modern television crime thriller. But both are well worth watching. Often my wife and I greatly looked forward to the next episode at the end of a long day. In the end, that's the most honest recommendation I can give.
Year: 1915-1916
Runtime: 10 films with a total of 6:57:00
Source: Kanopy
Feuillade immediately capitalized on the success of his first crime serial with a more ambitious follow-up. Les Vampires bears a lot of hallmarks of its rushed production. It's nearly identical to Fantomas in its broad outline - criminals with devious disguises (no actual vampires, I'm afraid), a plucky journalist hero, plenty of curtains - but this time, Feuillade was making it up as he went along, apparently letting his actors workshop much of the basic plot.
Contemporary critics considered it a classless genre flick at the time, but the public ate it up, and Les Vampires is now considered his finest and most influential work, the origin of the modern thriller. While Fantomas comprised a sequence of mostly self-contained detective stories (like the newspaper serial it was adapted from), Les Vampires is more of a true serial, with a serpentine plot, and a larger cast of characters with more interesting motives.
The Vampires are a cult-like criminal gang pursued by the journalist Phillippe Guerande. Although the Vampires are led by a succession of mostly interchangeable leaders, the true villain - and the real star of Les Vampires - would be the vixen Irma Vep, played by Jeanne Roques aka Musidora. Musidora had a face made for silent cinema: the dark outlines of her heavily made-up eyes over her pale white face give her a wonderfully deranged look. She always offers a hint of her true nature even as she disguises herself as a demure maid or bank clerk. The other real highlight is Mazamette (Marcel Levesque), the former Vampire and Guerande's comic-relief sidekick, who solves a great majority of the mysteries due to his mysterious powers of coincidence, always happening upon some great crime about to be committed. He acts like an odd vaudevillian mashup of Charlie Chaplin and Poirot, but I found his odd mannerisms to be delightful and a reminder not to take the plot too seriously.
The cinematography is much more dynamic this time around, and though I miss the long, luxurious, and theatrical shots, the greater pacing is able to hold a great deal more excitement, though not always much dramatic tension. There's a madcap energy to many of these films that can be truly fun - many of the climactic scenes involve the heros whipping out tiny derringers hidden away in the palms of their hands, with instantly appearing smoke drifts replacing the cracks of gunshots. There are also a few action scenes that verge on Buster Keaton-level slapstick, such as the protagonist fleeing his captors by rapidly tumbling down a set of stairs in a wicker basket. Unfortunately, Feuillade is less successful at slowly building suspense, since he usually can't help but give away the main plot twist to each mystery in the opening scene.
Ultimately, I find it hard to decide whether I prefer Les Vampires or Fantomas. Fantomas is more consistent, and feels more cinematic. Les Vampires has two very strong performers in Musidora and Levesque, and is more like a modern television crime thriller. But both are well worth watching. Often my wife and I greatly looked forward to the next episode at the end of a long day. In the end, that's the most honest recommendation I can give.
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