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Fantomas (Maurice Teynac) is dead ... well, at least everybody believes
so, especially Inspector Juve (Alexandre Rignault), his prime nemesis over
many years. And thus, when winemaker Noblet receives a blackmailing letter
from same, he doesn't go to the police but to reporter Fandor (Yves
Furet), who covered the case extensively. Fandor of course also believes
that Fantomas is dead ... but he knows a good story when he sees one - and
then when Noblet is to hand over the money, both he and Fantomas' helper
are shot dead, Fandor almost burns to death in Noblet's office ... and
somehow Fantomas escapes with the money. It doesn't take Fandor long to
convince juve that Fantomas might not be all that dead, especially after
he blackmails more people, usually using acquaintances of these people who
have been kidnapped and brainwashed as money couriers. Juve and Fandor try
to follow one of the money couriers - but that almost leads to Fandor's
demise. Eventually, Fantomas takes doctor Bréval (Aimé Clariond)
captive, a scientist who has perfected brainwashing techniques far beyond
Fantomas' own, but Bréval, though shunned by the scientific world these
days, is reluctant to help ... until Fantomas kidnaps Bréval's sweetheart
Irène (Marcelle Chantal), brainwashing her into loving him - Irène it
should be mentioned, is the mother of Christiane (Nora Costes), Fandor's
girlfriend. This goes well for a while, and with his new brainwashed army,
Fantomas spreads terror over Paris, killing random people to force the
gouvernment to fully pardon Fantomas ... but then one of Fantomas' victims
turns out to be Irène's son, and when she rather accidently learns of it,
she snaps out of her brainwashed state, makes an escape and phones Fandor.
She can be recaptured and is ultimately killed, but when her body is found
and the time of her death determined and adds up with the time of the
phonecall, the call can be tracked back, and now the police move in on
Fantomas. In the meantime, Bréval has learned about his sweetheart's
death though and now he turns Fantomas' brainwashed army, who listen to
Bréval first and foremost, on Fantomas. In the finale, Bréval is killed,
as are many of his brainwashed men, but ultimately, Fantomas falls into an
acid vat fighting with a trio of members of his former braindead army just
before the police manage to break into his headquarters. Fantômas
contre Fantômas is full of murder mystery mainstays, wild sci-fi
ideas, far-fetched plot twists, red herrings, chases and fights ... in
short, everything a pulp fan like myself needs to like a film - and yet
it's far from perfect, maybe not even mediocre: Basically, despite all
these very nice elements, the film just fails to really click,
narratively. As a whole it's much more of a accumulation of episodes than
one coherent movie and thus weak in structure, to the point where things
actually get a bit boring. That said, the film has its moments, and
especially the finale with Fantomas running from his own creatures, is
very much on the creepy side, but a classic or even a hidden gem the film
definitely is not.
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