Juve vs. Fantomas (1913)

Juve vs. Fantomas (1913) is Louis Feuillade’s second film adaptation (affiliate link) of the popular crime series by Marcell Allain and Pierre Souvestre. Rene Navarre plays the role of Fantomas and his many aliases. Edmund Breon portrays Inspector Juve. George Melchior plays the role of Jerome Fandor, a young journalist, who assists Juve in his investigations of Fantomas. Juve and Fandor are the only two representatives of the Paris establishment that believe Fantomas exists.

The movie begins in Juve’s office, where he has been assigned recent crimes. He believes the crimes have been committed by Fantomas. A crushed body, which may be of the missing Lady Beltham, a Fantomas confederate, has been found in Dr. Chaleck’s house. Juve has written a report about the crimes, which he shares with Fandor.

In the previous movie, Juve discovered the character Gurn was actually Fantomas. Gurn escaped after impersonating an actor, who was killed in his place. Juve now wonders if Fantomas is actually Dr. Chaleck. They decide to tail Chaleck to find out.

While Juve is following a man,  an unknown henchman jumps on the back of Juve’s taxi and flattens the rear tire with a knife. Fandor is able to trail Josephine, portrayed by Yvette Andreyore to the train station. Josephine is meeting a businessman, who she is setting up for a robbery.

While Josephine and her suitor are on the last car in the train, one of the robbers unhook the rear car. The robbers then take both the suitor and Fandor’s money and possessions. As they leave the train, it begins to roll back down the track with Fandor and the businessman.

Feuillade depicts Fantomas’ depravity by showing the car rolling back down a grade, where another train would hit it head on cause many in the train to be killed including women and children.  Fantomas’ goal was to kill the businessman on the detached car.

The robbers have been momentarily foiled because the businessman was carrying bank notes, which were cut in half. The remainder of the money was going to be delivered by the other partner. Fantomas decides to break into the businessman’s office to gain possession of all the notes. Thinking that Fandor is dead, he also decides to kill Juve.

Fantomas sends two telegrams. The first is to set up a meeting with the other business partner. The second telegram is to set up a meeting with Juve.

Juve suspects a trap, so he shows up on alert and armed. However, he meets Fandor, who had been tipped off by the businessman. As Fandor is relating to Juve what happened, the henchmen spring out of their hiding places behind the barrels and begin shooting at them.

Since they are unable to get a good shot at Juve and Fandor, Fantomas orders the henchman to set fire to the barrels of wine at the meeting place. Juve and Fandor are able to make their escape by jumping into an empty barrel and rolling into the river. The inter title informs the viewer that part one of the movie, which is about 61 minutes long has ended.

Feuillade uses a number of outdoor setting particularly urban street scenes in the movie. One thing that stood out to me about Feuillade’s technique in putting together the film was his use of inter titles to move the story along and explain the action.

In an early scene of Juve and Fandor trying to tail different people through the streets of Paris, Feuillade inserts the inter title “In a working class section of Paris…” The inter title orients the viewer to the fact that the urban street scape that they are viewing is Paris.

In the scene, where Fandor is trailing Josephine, Josephine enters a dress shop. She comes out an hour later dressed as a middle class lady. We know it has been an hour because Feuillade inserts the inter title, “An hour later, Josephine reappeared, dressed like an elegant petite bourgeois.” Feuillade is clueing the viewer to how long it took Josephine to alter her appearance.

Lastly, in the scene where the train struck the detached car that was rolling back down the tracks, Feuillade makes sure we know that Fantomas planned this accident. He inserts the inter title, “To eliminate any witness to his plot, Fantomas not only predicted the disaster – he had engineered it.” The viewer is to have no doubt that Fantomas planned to cause the derailment.

In part two of the film, called “The Crocodile”, Juve and Fandor attend a society event. After they are seated, Fandor notices that Josephine is seated at the adjacent table. He introduces her to Juve, which clearly unnerves her.

Juve demands to know where Dr. Chaleck is or Josephine will be arrested. She refuses to tell him at first but once he starts to leave to get her jacket, she relents. Dr. Chaleck is actually at the event in another area of the hall.

Juve has one of the servants instruct Dr. Chaleck that he will be waiting for him outside. Chaleck retrieves his coat and walks outside, where he is taken by arm by both Juve and Fandor. Feuillade uses a blue tint to the black and white print to signal to the viewer that it is night outside. This technique was fairly common in early silent cinema.

Chaleck makes his escape by running out of his jacket, which is equipped with fake arms. He jumps into a taxi and tips his hat to Juve and Fandor. Feuillade cuts to the next scene, which is Dr. Chaleck returning to the table with the two ladies that he was dining with earlier. Feuillade is showing us that Dr. Chaleck (Fantomas?) is not concerned about the people pursuing him.

In part three of the film, “The Haunted Villa”, we pick up the story of Lady Beltham, who is living in a convent after Gurn, actually Fantomas, has abandoned her. Dr. Chaleck sends her a note. She decides to meet him in a nearby villa. When she enters the scene, both the outside and inside spaces have the blue tint to cue us that it is a night scene. She enters the room, where Chaleck is standing in the shadows and turns on the light. The tint goes from blue to the same tint as the rest of the interior spaces in the film.

Dr. Chaleck startles Lady Beltham and reveals that he is Gurn. He quickly brings her back under his hypnotic powers. She agrees to meet him at the villa every Wednesday at midnight. He then walks her out to her waiting chauffeur.

The film does have several editing cuts to move the action along but the camera itself is pretty stationary. It is not uncommon in films of this age that the camera did not move much. Tracking shots developed with the technology.

In one scene at the villa, the man is showing Juve and Fandor, who are disguised, the upstairs. The camera is situated where it catches the majority of the interior of this space, however, when they go to the stairwell, all three characters are out of the frame for a brief period. Today, you would normally not ever have that happen unless it was a mistake.

After a tour of the basement, Juve and Fandor leave but with the intent of returning on Wednesday night.  Lady Beltham returns to the villa at about the same time as Juve and Fandor, who climb over the fence.

They observe Lady Beltham meet with Dr. Chaleck. She begs him to give up his life of crime and leave with her. He agrees but states first Juve will be killed in his bed within four days. Unbeknown to Dr. Chaleck, Juve and Fandor have heard everything from the vent in the cellar.

After Fantomas unsuccessfully tries to follow through on his threat, the mystery of the crushed body is revealed. Juve and Fandor rush to the villa to catch Fantomas. Whether they would be able to catch him or not would be the question.

Feuillade made a very interesting chase film despite the limits of camera movement in the early 1910s. He managed to tell a coherent story, which kept the viewer’s attention. His focus on tinting, editing and inter titles helped in the telling of that story and moving the narrative.

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