Fantomas: In the Shadow of the Guillotine


1913 first of a serial

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The villainous Fantomas robs a hotel, abducts a guy, and gets himself arrested.

This isn't terribly interesting, an under-hour first in a series of French Fantomas films that feels much longer. There's intrigue and mystery, but the storytelling suffers from this stiffness, the characters never really come to life, and there's none of the ingenuity of early cinema that usually gets me overly excited. I might watch the four subsequent films, but I don't think I'll be in a hurry to do it.

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