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The Marquise de Langrune (Marie-Laure) has invited all of her high
society friends to her mansion in the middle of nowhere, which she is
about to sell to Lord Beltham (Jean Worms). Of course, master criminal
Fantomas has
also announced himself (uninvited of course) and has threatened to kill
someone in the house - which he does, and not just anyone but the Marquise
herself who had a large lump of money in her room. Inspector Juve (Thomy
Bourdelle), arch enemy of Fantomas, arrives on the scene only minutes too
late, but this time around, Fantomas has left two ear witnesses behind who
could identify him by his voice, Lord Beltham and Princess Sonia (Anielka
Elter). And even though Fantomas was more than successful to cover up
all of his tracks, Juve is quick to identify him as monsieur Rambert (Jean
Galland), the one guy with a watertight alibi - he was on a train during
the time of the murder for which there are plenty of witnesses ... but, as
Juve points out, he could have left the train at one point, snatched Lady
Beltham's (Tania Fédor) airplane - airplane noise has been heard both
before and after the murder -, could have done the deed, and then caught
up with the train without anybody noticing he has been gone.
Rambert/Fantomas manages to escape through some secret passageways though
... Juve now makes an effort to guard the life of Princess Sonia, but
all of his efforts are in vain, and she's killed right under Juve's nose. Lord
Beltham is an enthusiastic racecar driver, but at his latest race he makes
a terrible discovery: The voice of the friend his wife has brought to
watch the thing with her, a certain monsieur Brun (Jean Galland again) is
actually that he heard right after the killing of the Marquise - and thus
Brun must be Fantomas. Beltham calls Juve immediately, but before he can
spill the beans, he dies in what seems to be a normal race accident, but
was actually carefully fabricated by Fantomas. It doesn't take Juve long
though to find out that Fantomas is Brun, and that Lady Beltham is
probably his accomplice, and ultimately he lures Fantomas into a trap and
manages to arrest him - only to in the end witness Fantomas blow up the
police car taking him to jail and escape again ... The films of
the Fantomas-series Louis Feuillade made from 1913 to 1914
were sytylistically trailblazing masterpieces of early pulp cinema. This
film on the other hand, not so much so. Actually it is a rather pedestrian
pulpy murder mystery with all the familiar elements firmly in place and
little in terms of surprise. And the direction is way too stagey for its
own good. That all isn't to say the film isn't at least some fun in a
nostalgic way ... just don't expect anything much, or you'll be
disappointed.
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