(Evidently, the first real gun silencer was invented in 1908, but this isn't mentioned.) In the previous book, MESSENGERS OF EVIL, Fantmas succeeds in framing a dead man with a series of murders, which he commits while wearing the peeled, glove-like skin of the dead man's hands over his own, leaving the corpse's fingerprints on the necks of those he strangles. In this book, Fantmas makes his presence known with a custom-made pistol that fires a silent projectile into the hearts of those who betray him, or who outlive their usefulness. Right now, I'm reading the fourth book in the series, A NEST OF SPIES, a surprisingly complex and cynical story about Fantmas as a ringleader of spies trading in military secrets, published several years before the release of Fritz Lang's SPIONE/SPIES, which is often cited as the origin of the Bond film. Over the years I have managed to collect - at great expense (you'll be lucky to find any one of the original English editions for less than $40) - all the English Fantmas novels except for BULLDOG AND RATS, which was published only in the UK. Morrow editions of the first two Souvestre/Allain novels, FANTOMAS and THE SILENT EXECUTIONER (actually new and condensed translations), I became obsessed and began collecting all the Fantmas I could find. After the first 32 (which were written on a monthly basis between 19!), the rest were written by Marcel Allain alone, Souvestre having died during the war.Īfter reading the Wm. There are also 43 Fantmas novels in French, less than 1/3rd of which were translated into English back in the 1910s and '20s. Today, there are now a couple of tremendous DVD box sets out in France, one of the original Feuillade serials and another collecting all three Hunebelle films (which are much more comic-bookish and actually presage the gadgetry of the Bond films AND the pop/camp revolution that is commonly ascribed to BATMAN). I spent years waiting for it to be shown again, but that rebroadcast never happened.
The movie itself had been brought to my attention in an issue of CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and I loved it.
I remember getting permission to stay up and watch this movie at 11:30pm on a Sunday night, with a new school week looming ahead. I had long been acquainted with the Andr Hunebelle film starring Jean Marais and Mylne Demongeot, which I saw in English on commercial television when I was about 10 years old.
Morrow and Company reprinted the first Fantmas novel by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain. I suppose it has now been 18 years since Wm. Don't tell me I'm the only person here who is into Fantmas and Judex! No folders? Then I'll start one!
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