Breezy early crime serial that brims with a uniquely French affection for rogues. It follows the adventures of Fantomas, jewel thief, murderer and all-around bad egg. A police inspector and a reporter cook up clever schemes to catch him, but the film’s sympathies are with the criminal, as that’s more fun. It’s the kind of exotic point of view that you get in pulp fiction. The hook here is not how the detective will save the day, but how Fantomas will escape capture again and again across this film’s five episodes and nearly six-hour total length.
The French loved it and it’s still entertaining a full century later, even if the storytelling here is on the rough side. Pivotal characters disappear sometimes with no explanation and others show up out of the blue in a way that makes you feel like you missed something. None of that mattered in France in 1913 though, where Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre’s Fantomas pulp novels were so popular that everyone already knew the characters and the story. It doesn’t hurt the film too much today, either. The plot’s cat-and-mouse game is simple enough in the big picture and the convoluted parts in the later chapters are sort of dream-like.
It’s the precursor to director Louis Feuillade’s most famous crime serial, Les Vampires, which offers an even more flamboyant villain.