Diving into Hitchcock

Been working on this book for the past couple weeks.

I picked it up because I read somewhere that it was an extremely well researched and well written biography of Hitchcock, and if there's anything I like more than a good movie, it's a good biography. The "well researched" description is extremely true--at first I was freaked out by the level of detail in it. It seems like the author could tell you what Hitch did every day of his life from the age of 14. Reading it makes me feel like a voyeur peeking into someone else's life, almost like I'm a character in a Hitchcock movie. Whoa.

Originally I was worried that I was getting ahead of myself because I'm currently at 1920 in my project, and I had always connected Hitchcock with a later era in my mind. But my concern over continuity was for naught--Hitchcock's career spanned both the silent and sound eras and he directed films in 6 different decades. So, it's not a bad idea to read a Hitchcock biography while you're trying to learn about general film history. Hitch had quite a few movies under his belt before Britain switched to sound in 1929 (the first British sound production was a Hitchcock picture), so a lot of the things I'm noticing in my project have parallels in his life story. Plus, as an adolescent he was a prolific movie and theater fan, so chances are I am watching movies he saw as a young man when they were in theaters.

Later in life, Hitch would state that his greatest influence was "the Germans": The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, and Ernst Lubitsch. Hitchcock even directed some films in Germany during the 1920s. This explains a lot of his stylistic choices and why many memorable scenes from his movies are set to silence or near silence. He idolized the masters of scenery and atmosphere.

The only Hitchcock movies I saw as a kid are from later in his career, after he became the most famous and picked apart director in the world. There's a lot I haven't seen, and I look forward to diving into it with all this new knowledge I'm gaining.

My favorite quote from the book so far-

After being told by a writer that a certain plot wasn't logical:

"I'm not interested in logic, I'm interested in effect. If the audience ever thinks about logic, it's on their way home after the show, and by that time, you see, they've paid for the tickets."

It's all about effect, you see.

If you're interested in other great books about directors, this one about David Lean is fantastic. Highly recommended. 

7. Broken Blossoms (1919)

This is the third film by D. W. Griffith on the 1001 list, and the first I have enjoyed. There are still some aspects of this movie that are cringe-worthy (its alternate title is "The Yellow Man and the Girl") but overall this film is more nuanced and sensitive than the others. Its themes are no less complex than Griffith's other two previous films on the list, but his staging is less ambitious here and that serves him well in getting his message across.

Cheng Huan (Richard Barthelmess) leaves his native China because he "dreams to spread the gentle message of Buddha to the Anglo-Saxon lands." His idealism fades as he is faced with the brutal reality of London's gritty inner-city. However, his mission is finally realized in his devotion to the "broken blossom" Lucy Burrows (Lillian Gish), the beautiful but unwanted and abused daughter of boxer Battling Burrows (Donald Crisp).

After being beaten and discarded one evening by her raging father, Lucy finds sanctuary in Cheng's home, the beautiful and exotic room above his shop. As Cheng nurses Lucy back to health, the two form a bond as two unwanted outcasts of society. All goes astray for them when Lucy's father gets wind of his daughter's whereabouts and in a drunken rage drags her back to their home to punish her. Fearing for her life, Lucy locks herself inside a closet to escape her contemptuous father.

By the time Cheng arrives to rescue Lucy, whom he so innocently adores, it is too late. Lucy's lifeless body lies on her modest bed as Battling has a drink in the other room. As Cheng gazes at Lucy's youthful face which, in spite of the circumstances, beams with innocence and even the slightest hint of a smile, Battling enters the room to make his escape. The two stand for a long while, exchanging spiteful glances, until Battling lunges for Cheng with a hatchet, and Cheng retaliates by shooting Burrows repeatedly with his handgun. After returning to his home with Lucy's body, Cheng builds a shrine to Buddha and takes his own life with a knife to the stomach.

This film was made during a period of anti-Chinese fear called the Yellow Peril. But in contrast to Griffith's fear-mongering The Birth of a Nation and confused Intolerance, this film preaches a message of tolerance. Griffith adapted the plot from a popular book of the era, but changed the nature of the main character to make him much more sympathetic. I can almost forgive Griffith for calling Cheng Huan "yellow man" and "chinky" because of how sensitively he frames the character's personality.

This movie was successful and highly praised by both audiences and critics even though viewers were disturbed by the depictions of child abuse. The original backer was so furious over the sad ending--all the main characters die--that Griffith bought the film back from him. It ended up being the first film distributed by United Artists, a collective Griffith started with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin so they could release their own films and avoid dealing with the status quo studio system. 

I liked this movie a lot more than I expected and I'm very curious about the next film on the 1001 list, another Griffith classic.

Fun fact - the actor who played the abusive father in this film, Donald Crisp, was also a director during the silent era and learned much of his tradecraft from D.W. Griffith. Crisp would later star in one of my favorite movies of all time, How Green Was My Valley, and win an Oscar for best supporting actor.

6. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)

Out of all the silent movies on the list, this is the one I was most excited about watching. I've heard a lot about it over the years but never actually seen it before.

This movie is acclaimed as one of the best silent horror movies, and it's also an example of Expressionist cinema. Expressionism started in the early 20th century as an avant garde movement and flourished during the Weimar Republic in Germany (1920s). It's an artistic style that emphasizes emotion over realism.

Expressionist film developed partially because of the isolation Germany experienced during World War I. During the war, the German government banned foreign films, so the German film industry's production rate skyrocketed to make up for the lack of outside material. Once the inflation problem started, Germans started going out and spending their money on quick entertainment like movies so they'd get some use out of the money before it became worthless.

Eventually the rest of the world start appreciating the artistry and inventiveness of German films and German filmmakers gradually got access to more resources. But early on, expressionist films had very small budgets, and the makers compensated for that by making loud set pieces full of non-realistic, geometric shapes. Couple that with Caligari's theme of insanity and you have one very surreal film. 

The plot (stolen from Wikipedia):

The main narrative is introduced using a frame story in which most of the plot is presented as a flashback, as told by the protagonist, Francis (one of the earliest examples of a frame story in film).

Francis (Friedrich Fehér) and an elderly companion are sharing stories when a distracted-looking woman, Jane (Lil Dagover), passes by. Francis calls her his betrothed and narrates an interesting tale that he and Jane share. Francis begins his story with himself and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), who are both good-naturedly competing to be married to the lovely Jane. The two friends visit a carnival in their German mountain village of Holstenwall, where they encounter the captivating Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) and a near-silent somnambulist, Cesare (Conrad Veidt), whom the doctor keeps asleep in a coffin-like cabinet, controls hypnotically, and is displaying as an attraction. Caligari hawks that Cesare's continuous sleeping state allows him to know the answer to any question about the future. When Alan asks Cesare how long he will live, Cesare bluntly replies that Alan will die before dawn tomorrow—a prophecy which is fulfilled. Alan's violent death at the hands of some shadowy figure becomes the most recent in a series of mysterious murders in Holstenwall.

Francis, along with Jane, to whom he is now officially engaged, investigates Caligari and Cesare, which eventually results in Caligari's order for Cesare to murder Jane. Cesare nearly does so, revealing to Francis the almost certain connection of Cesare and his master Caligari to the recent homicides; however, Cesare refuses to go through with the killing because of Jane's beauty and he instead carries her out of her house, pursued by the townsfolk. Finally, after a long chase, Cesare releases Jane, falls over from exhaustion, and dies.

In the meantime, Francis goes to the local insane asylum to ask if there has ever been a patient there by the name of Caligari, only to be shocked to discover that Caligari is the asylum's director. With the help of some of Caligari's oblivious colleagues at the asylum, Francis discovers through old records that the man known as "Dr. Caligari" is obsessed with the story of a mythical monk called Caligari, who, in 1703, visited towns in northern Italy and similarly used a somnambulist under his control to kill people. Dr. Caligari, insanely driven to see if such a situation could actually occur, deemed himself "Caligari" and has since successfully carried out his string of proxy murders. Francis and the asylum's other doctors send the authorities to Caligari's office, where Caligari reveals his lunacy only when told that his beloved slave Cesare has died; Caligari is then imprisoned in his own asylum.

The narrative returns to the present moment, with Francis concluding his tale. A twist ending reveals that Francis' flashback, however, is actually his fantasy: he, Jane and Cesare are all in fact inmates of the insane asylum, and the man he says is Caligari is his asylum doctor, who, after this revelation of the source of his patient's delusion, says that now he will be able to cure Francis.

I love the twist ending. 

Everything about this movie is distorted and surreal - the acting, the scenery, the music, even the font on the title cards. 

The music is very modern and atonal. At first I was afraid it would annoy me, but after the first couple minutes I hardly even noticed it because it matched the plot so well. The visuals are really what stick with you:

Some of the most interesting art direction you will ever see.

This movie is a trip. Recommended viewing for anyone who is curious about early horror films or is interested in Expressionism. I watched it with a couple friends of mine, and although it probably wasn't what they were expecting, I think they were glad they watched it with me. 

Fun fact: German filmmaking during this period was considered "more artistic" than that in other countries, and the Expressionist style was influential to directors such as Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. More on that later.

Zero Dark Thirty

If I had to guess which current movies will make it on to future 1001 lists, I would pick Zero Dark Thirty for sure. I can't remember the last time everyone I know (and don't know) has been so eager to dissect a movie.

How ironic is it that Kathryn Bigelow, who has succeeded better than anyone else so far at making good movies about ongoing wars, used to be married to James Cameron, the ultimate commercial director?

I've seen it twice so far, once with my boyfriend and a second time with my parents. I liked it the first time, but I think I enjoyed it even more the second time around because I was more relaxed. At first I thought the format of breaking it up into chapters was a little weird, but it didn't bother me the second time around. With a story that stretches over 10 years, breaking it up that way was probably the easiest way to establish shifts in time and locale. Other details stuck out at me more the second time around.

I love that this movie has gotten so many people talking, and that everyone seems to interpret it a little differently.

It might not be as nailbiting exciting all the way through as The Hurt Locker, but I'm ok with that. Zero Dark Thirty is asking bigger, more complicated questions, and it gets more political.

There were two scenes in the movie that I really loved (minor spoilers ahead):

1. The scene after James Gandolfini as Leon Panetta is briefed on the compound, walking into the elevator he asks his assistant "what do you think of the girl?"

Assistant: "I think she's fucking smart."

Panetta: (sarcastically) "We're all smart."

2. The scenes where the special helicopters are en route to the compound and it's so dark you can barely see them flying low over the mountain passes. So chilling. I tried to imagine what thoughts were going through the SEALs' heads right at that moment.

I also loved all the scenes of the Navy SEALs leading up to the raid. The actors did a great job of conveying the camaraderie that comes with being part of a tight-knit unit. I liked the scenes where the more skeptical SEALs are questioning Maya (Jessica Chastain's character) on what her evidence is and why they should believe her.

Most of America may be keen to forget all the missteps and questionable judgment calls of the last 10 years, but topics like torture shouldn't be glossed over and forgotten about.

The questions I'm left with are: what will we do differently in the future because of what we've learned in the past 10 years? Have we even learned anything in the past 10 years?

Will we ever learn?

5. Intolerance (1916)

In 1915, D.W. Griffith was developing a film focused on the dangers of social reform called "The Mother and the Law" when critiques of his previous film Birth of a Nation started rolling in. Angered by the accusations of racism in the film, he added additional storylines to his new project that showed the result of intolerance throughout history. This was his attempt at silencing critics.

The outcome was a sprawling, ambitious film that cost a then unheard of $2 million to produce. It received positive critical reviews, but did not do well with the American public (protip: don't make an anti-war film when your country is about to enter a World War ...). The film was originally 3 hours and 30 minutes long, but most modern cuts are 3 hours and 17 minutes. The one I watched was 3 hours 17 minutes.

The plot consists of four stories set in different historical periods that span 2,500 years. To emphasize the thematic connections between the stories, they are intercut throughout the movie instead of being presented linearly.

The film opens with a shot of a woman deemed "Eternal Motherhood" rocking a cradle. She symbolizes the passing of generations, and subsequent shots of her are used to transition between the four stories throughout the film.

The Modern Story (The Mother and the Law)

The largest portion of the film is occupied by the plot of Griffith's original idea pre-Birth of a Nation. A group of early 20th-century female social reformers called "Uplifters" try to gain the patronage of a wealthy spinster whose brother owns a mill so they can further their cause. The wealthy spinster agrees to help finance the Uplifters, but after a while she finds that the mill is not generating enough revenue to satisfy her altruistic pursuits. She complains to her brother, whose response is to order a 10% cut in wages for all his factory workers. After the mill owner orders the wage cut, the workers go on strike but are quickly and violently suppressed by the state militia. (This was based on a real event.) Many victims of the strike move to a nearby city, including the Little Dear One, a young woman who takes care of her father (a former mill worker), and The Boy, another former mill worker. After arriving in the city, the Boy falls into a life of crime working for the Musketeer of the Slums. Another disenfranchised young person called The Friendless One falls in with the Musketeer and becomes his mistress. After struggling to adapt to his sudden life changes, the Dear One's father dies, leaving her alone in the world. The Dear One and the Boy get married and he swears off his former life of crime.

He returns his gun to the Musketeer, but they get in a scuffle and the Musketeer vows revenge because he is now afraid the Boy will turn him in to the police. The Musketeer stages a setup to implicate the Boy in a crime and the Boy is sent to jail. Intercut scenes show the Uplifters celebrating their successes at reforming society. A few months pass and the Dear One has a baby. As her husband is in jail (nevermind that he's falsely incarcerated), the Uplifters are convinced the Dear One is a negligent mother and take her baby away. Once again, the Dear One is alone.

The film's poster showing an evil reformer's hand trying to take the baby from its mother.

The Musketeer goes to the Dear One's apartment and promises to help her get her baby back. The Friendless One (the Musketeer's girlfriend) watches jealously. The Boy is released from jail and reunited with the Dear One.

While the Boy is out one day, the Musketeer goes to the Dear One's apartment to get the address for where the baby is being held. His girlfriend puts a gun in her handbag and follows him without his knowledge. He enters the Dear One's apartment and tries to assault her. As this is happening, an informant tells the Boy that the Musketeer has gone to the apartment. When the Boy arrives, he can already hear a scuffle inside and he kicks down the door. He and the Musketeer get into a fight, during which the Boy and the Dear One are knocked unconscious. The Friendless One (whom nobody knows is watching) leans in through a window and shoots the Musketeer. When the Dear One and the Boy come to, they see the dead Musketeer on the ground. The police arrive and arrest the Boy.

The Boy is put on trial. As he gives his testimony, a closeup shows the Dear One wringing her hands.

The Friendless One--the real murderer--watches the trial but says nothing of her guilt.

The Boy is found guilty and sentenced to death. Back at the Dear One's apartment, a 'kindly police officer' tries to comfort her.

Upon inspecting the room where the crime was committed, the police officer realizes the gunshots must have been fired from an observer through the window. This gives the Dear One hope that they can appeal the Boy's case. The police officer and the Dear One rush off to the governor's house to plead their case, followed by the Friendless One, who is still racked with guilt. After denying the Dear One's pleas, the governor leaves his house. As the Dear One collapses on the steps outside, the Friendless One finally admits her guilt to the Dear One and the police officer. Scenes are intercut showing the boy being administered last rites by a priest and being led to the gallows. The Dear One, Friendless One, and police officer chase after the governor and stop the train he has boarded from going any further. The Friendless One confesses to the murder. The governor signs a pardon and instructs an aide to halt the Boy's hanging. As the Boy is being prepared for the gallows, a phone rings nearby--at the very last second--letting the executioners know of the pardon. The heightened tension is finally diffused as the Boy is reunited with the Dear One. The Dear One gets the baby back and the story ends with "justice and restoration" (title card).

Three other stories are intercut with this one--the fall of ancient Babylon to Cyrus the Great, Christ's crucifixion, and the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre in France in 1572--but the modern story is the longest and most interesting. It's also notable because it is the only one in the movie that has a happy ending; the others end with death and destruction.

Overall, this film is too preachy to be enjoyable. Notice how many of the characters don't have regular names, but are titled according to how Griffith wanted the audience to view them: the Dear One, the Boy, the Friendless One, the Musketeer of the Slums.

Film is often used as a way to express personal views, but Griffith is too overt with it for a narrative film. Most directors employ emotional manipulation in their films, but I like for it to be more subtle so there is at least an illusion that the audience is thinking for themselves. The discovery of "oh, he's the bad guy" or "I feel sympathetic toward that character" is paramount to the movie-watching experience, and Griffith deprives his viewers of that. As for the anti-progressive stance he takes, it was probably influenced in part by the fact that many reformers were supported film censorship, which Griffith would rail against throughout his career.

Even if his did go a little overboard with his emotional manipulation of the audience, Griffith is regarded as a master of silent film techniques and there are many technical aspects of this film that are appreciable.

For starters, the scenes set in ancient Babylon are breathtaking.

Look at those set pieces! They are jaw-droppingly big.

A lot of live animals were used in the Babylon scenes to make them extra exotic.

Aside from being known for its sheer scale, this film is also known for its revolutionary editing style of intercutting multiple plotlines. As the film reaches its climax, the cuts get quicker and quicker. This style influenced European and Soviet filmmakers in particular.

Many of Griffith's assistant directors went on to illustrious Hollywood careers themselves, including Erich von Stroheim (Greed, Foolish Wives, Sunset Boulevard), Tod Browning (Dracula, Freaks) and W.S. Van Dyke (The Thin Man, San Francisco).

I find it interesting that the controversy surrounding Griffith's earlier film and the commercial failure of this one did not halt his career. Despite the questionable content of his movies, the man is regarded as a genius and forefather of modern cinema. The question of whether you should you judge ones art separately from their personal life/beliefs is thrown around often in reference to controversial figures. The answer to the question when applied to D.W. Griffith is a resounding "yes." His artistry was impressive enough that people overlook his themes, but I have a hard time getting past them. This film really touched a nerve with me. The themes probably stick out to me the most because I'm a 21st-century viewer. I'm used to seeing big movies with special effects. While the set pieces and editing are impressive for their era, they don't make this a "good" movie to me.

Fun fact: false eyelashes were invented during the production of this film because Griffith wanted the Babylonian princess' eyelashes to be so long they brushed her cheeks when she blinked.

This film is available on Netflix.

4. Les Vampires (1915-16)

Les Vampires follows the adventures of Parisian newspaper reporter Philippe Guerande as he investigates a string of crimes committed by a gang called the Vampires.

He is aided along the way by his coworker Mazamette, who has been working undercover with the Vampires. Mazamette becomes Philippe's faithful sidekick and also provides comic relief throughout the movie.

Philippe and Mazamette spend much of their time entangled with a particular Vampires member, Irma Vep, as she carries out many of the gang's dastardly plans.

The plot is as follows (stolen from Wikipedia):

Episode 1 - The Severed Head

Philipe Guérande (Édouard Mathé), a reporter working for the newspaper "The Paris Chronicle" who is investigating a criminal organisation called the Vampires, receives a telegram at work stating that the decapitated body of the national security agent in charge of the Vampire investigations, Inspector Durtal, was found in the swamps near Saint-Clement-Sur-Cher, with the head missing. Being turned down by the local magistrate (Thelès), he spends the night in a nearby castle owned by Dr. Nox (Jean Aymé), an old friend of his father, along with Mrs. Simpson (Rita Herlor), an American multimillionaire who desires the property. After waking up in the night, Philipe finds a note in his pocket saying ‘Give up your search, otherwise bad luck awaits you! – The Vampires’ and a mysterious passage behind a painting in his room. Meanwhile, Mrs. Simpson’s money and jewels are stolen in her sleep by a masked thief, but Philipe is suspected of the crime. Philipe again visits the magistrate, who now believes his case, and they trick Dr. Nox and Mrs. Simpson into waiting in an anteroom. At the castle, Philipe and the magistrate find the head of Inspector Durtal hidden in the passage in Philipe’s room. Back in the anteroom, they find that Mrs. Simpson is dead and that Dr. Nox has vanished. Her pocket contains a note from the Grand Vampire saying that he has murdered the real Dr. Nox and is now assuming his identity.

Episode 2 - The Ring That Kills

Grand Vampire in disguise as Count de Noirmoutier, reads that ballerina Marfa Koutiloff (Stacia Napierkowska), who is engaged to Philipe, will perform a ballet called The Vampires. To prevent her from publicizing the Vampires' activities and to deter Philipe, he gives Marfa a poisoned ring before her performance, which kills her onstage. Amidst the panicking crowds Philipe recognizes the Grand Vampire and follows him to an abandoned fort and is captured by the gang. They agree to interrogate Philipe at midnight and execute him at dawn. Philipe finds that the Vampire guarding him is one of his co-workers, Oscar-Cloud Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque). They decide to work together and capture the Grand Inquisitor when he arrives at midnight. They bind and hood the Grand Inquisitor, and set him up for execution in place of Phillipe. At dawn the Vampires arrive for the execution, but the police raid the lair. The Vampires escape, but as they flee they mistakenly execute their own Grand Inquisitor, who turns out to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Episode 3 - The Red Cypher

While faking illness to get off work, Philipe tries to decode a red booklet that he lifted from the Grand Inquisitor’s body, which contains the crimes of the Vampires. He discovers that his house is under surveillance by the Vampires, so he leaves in disguise. Following clues in the booklet he arrives at "The Howling Cat" night club. Performing there is Irma Vep (Musidora), whose name Philipe sees is an anagram for vampire. After her act, the Grand Vampire assigns Irma to retrieve the red booklet. As Philipe returns home Mazamette arrives, along with a poison pen he stole from the Grand Vampire. A few days later, Irma arrives at their house disguised as a new maid, but Philipe recognizes her. She tries to poison him, but fails. His mother (Delphine Renot) leaves to meet her brother after receiving word that he has been in a car accident, but it turns out to be a trap and she is captured by the Vampires. While Philipe is asleep, Irma lets another Vampire into his home but he shoots them. They escape, however, because his gun was loaded with blanks. In a shack in the slums, Philipe’s mother is held by Father Silence (Louis Leubas), a deaf-mute, and is forced to sign a ransom note, but she kills him with Mazamette’s poison pen and escapes.

Episode 4 - The Spectre

The Grand Vampire, under the alias of a real estate broker "Treps," meets Juan-José Moréno (Fernand Herrmann), a businessman, who asks for an apartment with a safe. The Grand Vampire puts Moréno into an apartment whose safe is rigged to be opened from the rear through the party wall of an apartment belonging to Irma Vep and the Grand Vampire. However, the case Moréno places inside contains the Vampires’ black attire. Later, in disguise as bank secretary "Juliette Bertaux," Irma learns that a man called Mr. Metadier has to bring₣300,000 to another branch. In the case that he is unable to make the delivery, Irma will. Soon afterward, Mr. Metadier is murdered by the Vampires and his body disposed of while on a train home from a film. When Irma is about to take the money for him a spectre of Mr. Metadier appears and takes it instead. The Grand Vampire pursues the spectre, who escapes down a manhole. Later that day, Mme. Metadier appears at the bank, saying she hasn’t seen her husband in days. They also find out that the money hasn’t been delivered. Philipe soon learns of this, and goes to the bank in disguise, recognizing Irma. He finds her address and a few hours later sneaks in, using Mazamette as a ploy. Irma and the Grand Vampire open the safe from their side, only to find Metadier’s body and the money. Philipe tries to capture them but is knocked down and they escape. Philipe calls the police just as Moréno enters and finds his safe opened from the other side. He walks through and is caught by Philipe. Moréno is revealed to be another criminal in disguise, and claims not to have killed Metadier, but to have found his body by the train tracks where the Vampires had dumped it. Moréno found Metadier's letter of authority on his corpse, took Metadier's body home, disguised himself as Metadier, put the body in his safe, assumed Metadier's identity, took the money, and put it too in his safe. The upshot is that the money is now in the Vampires' possession. The police arrive and arrest Moréno.

Episode 5 - Dead Man's Escape

The examining magistrate from Saint-Clement-Sur-Cher relocates to Paris and is assigned to the Vampire case and the Moréno affair. After being summoned to the magistrate, Moréno commits suicide using a concealed cyanide capsule. His body is left in his cell, but during the night he wakes up, very much alive. He kills the night-watchman and takes his clothes, escaping from the prison. He is noticed by Mazamette, who is suffering from insomnia. The following morning, Moréno is found to have escaped. While writing an account of the events, Philipe is pulled out of his window by the Vampires and whisked into a large costume box. He is driven away and the box is unloaded, but incompetently, and it slides down a large flight of stairs. The Vampires retreat and Philipe is let out by two bystanders. He visits the costume designer Pugenc whose name and box number (13) are on the costume box, just missing Moréno and his gang who have bought police uniforms for a scheme of their own. Philipe learns from Pugenc that the costume box was to go to Baron de Mortesalgues on Maillot Avenue, and realizes that "Mortesalgues" must be another alias of the Grand Vampire. Later, Moréno confronts Philipe in a café, but when Philipe calls for the nearby policemen, they turn out to be part of Moréno’s gang and he is again captured. Meanwhile, Mazamette breaks into Moréno’s hideout. Philipe is taken there to be hanged by the gang, unless he can give them means to revenge themselves against the Vampires. He tells them that Baron de Mortesalgues is the Grand Vampire, and they spare him, tying him up. Mazamette appears and frees him. That evening, the Grand Vampire, in disguise as Baron de Mortesalgues, holds a party for his "niece," who is Irma Vep in disguise. The party attracts many members of the Parisian aristocracy. "Mortesalgues" reveals that at midnight there will be a surprise; but the "surprise" is a sleeping-gas attack on the guests. The Vampires steal all of the guests' valuables while they are unconscious. The Vampires flee with the stolen items on the top of their car, but Moréno, forewarned by Philipe, robs the Vampires and sends Philipe a letter telling him that, for the moment, they are even. Mazamette visits Philipe; he is angry with their lack of progress and wants to quit. Philipe shows Mazamette a line from a book of Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables which states “in all things, one must take the end into account.” They renew their resolves.

Episode 6 - Hypnotic Eyes

Fifteen days have passed since the events at Maillot. Moréno is looking for clues to lead him to the Vampires, and reads in a paper that a Fontainebleau notary has been murdered by them; as he happens to possess a gaze with a terrible hypnotic power, he takes control of his new maid, Laura, to turn her into his slave. Meanwhile, Philipe and Mazamette happen to see a newsreel on the murder inquest, in which they spot Irma Vep and the Grand Vampire. They cycle to Fontainebleau to investigate. Enroute they spot an American tourist, Horatio Werner, riding fast into the forest, and follow him. He places a box under one of the boulders, and they take it. The Grand Vampire, who is staying in the Royal Hunt Hotel under the pseudonym of Count Kerlor, along with Irma in disguise as his son, Viscount Guy, reads in a paper that George Baldwin (Émile Keppens), an American millionaire, has been robbed of $200,000. Whoever can capture the criminal, Raphael Norton, who has fled to Europe with the actress Ethel Florid, will be awarded the unspent balance of the loot. "Kerlor" notices that Mr and Mrs. Werner, who are staying at the hotel, are distressed by this notice, and concludes that Mr. Werner is Raphael Norton. Philipe and Mazamette arrive at the hotel and find that the Vampires are based there. In a different hotel they force open the box and find Baldwin’s stolen money inside. Moréno comes to the Royal Hunt in disguise. While the Grand Vampire tells the hotel guests a story, Irma breaks into the Werners' suite, finding a map leading to the box in the forest. When she leaves, she is captured and chloroformed by Moréno, who takes the map. While his gang take Irma away, he dresses his hypnotized maid, Laura, as Irma and tells her to give the Vampires the map. Once one of the Vampires (Miss Édith) follows the map to get the treasure, Moréno’s gang ambushes her, only to find that Philipe has already taken it. Moreno demands that the Grand Vampire ransom Irma Vep. In the early morning, the police raid the hotel and find that Werner is actually Norton, so Philipe and Mazamette win the money. Moréno falls in love with Irma and decides not to return her to the Grand Vampire. Instead, he hypnotizes her and causes her to write a confession of her involvement in the murders of the Fontainbleau notary (in this episode), Metadier (episode 4), the ballerina Marfa Koutiloff (episode 2), and Dr. Nox (episode 1). The Grand Vampire comes to meet Moréno, but Moréno by hypnotic command compels Irma to kill him. The episode ends with the now-wealthy Mazamette informing a dozen adoring journalists that "although vice is seldom punished, virtue is always rewarded."

Episode 7 - Satanas

A mysterious man (Louis Leubas) arrives at Moréno’s home, and shows that he knows that the Grand Vampire’s body is inside a trunk. Moréno tries to get rid of him, but he is paralysed by a pin in the man’s glove. The man reveals himself to be the true Grand Vampire, Satanas, and that the first was a subordinate. While at a cabaret called the "Happy Shack", Moréno and Irma receive a note from Satanas saying they will see proof of his power at two o'clock. At two he fires a powerful cannon at the "Happy Shack", largely destroying it. Meanwhile, Philipe decides to visit Mazamette, but he is out "chasing the girls." He hides as Mazamette arrives home, drunk, with two women and a friend, who he later chases out angrily at gunpoint. The next morning, Irma and Moréno go to Satanas’ home to surrender, and Satanas offers them the chance to work with him, informing them that American millionaire George Baldwin is stopping at the Park Hotel. Satanas wants Baldwin's signature. One of Moréno’s accomplices, Lily Flower (Suzanne Delvé), goes to the Park Hotel and poses as an interviewer from "Modern Woman" magazine and through trickery gets Baldwin to sign a blank piece of paper. Afterwards, Irma enters and dupes Baldwin into recording his voice saying "Parisian women are the most charming I've ever seen, all right!" Lily Flower brings Baldwin's signature to Moréno’s home, and Moréno writes out an order (over Baldwin's signature) to pay Lily Flower $100,000. Moréno’s gang seize the hotel telephone operator of Baldwin's hotel; Irma takes her place by using a forged note. When the bank cashier calls Baldwin to confirm that he has given a very large draft to an attractive Parisian woman, Irma intercepts the call, and plays the recording she made of Baldwin's voice, and the cashier is persuaded. While Lily Flower is taking the money, Mazamette comes in, recognising her as his old squeeze from the "Happy Shack", and follows her, seeing her hand the money to a man in a taxi—Moréno! Moréno gives Satanas the money, but he is given it back as a present. Philipe and Mazamette capture Lily Flower at her home and make her call Moréno and tell him to come, but when he and Irma arrive they fall into a trap and are caught by the police.

Episode 8 - The Thunder Master

Irma, sentenced to life imprisonment, has been sent to St. Lazarus’ prison. A transfer order is sent to the prison to send Irma to a penal colony in Algeria. On the day of her departure, Irma finds out that Moréno has been executed. Satanas follows Irma’s transportation route, stopping at a seaside hotel in disguise as a Priest. At the port, he gives some religious comfort to the prisoners, but Irma’s copy contains a secret message saying “the ship will blow up” and giving her directions on how to safeguard herself. Satanas destroys the ship with his cannon. Meanwhile, Philipe finds through the red codebook that the explosive shell that landed on the “Happy Shack” came from Montmartre, and Mazamette goes to investigate. His son, Eustache Mazamette (René Poyen), is sent home from school due to bad behaviour, so they go to "investigate" together. They find some men loading boxes into a house, and notice one of the top hat cases contains a shell. Later, reading that no survivors have been found from the exploding ship, Satanas visits Philipe to avenge Irma’s death. Satanas paralyses Phillipe with the poisoned pin in his glove and leaves a bomb in a top hat to kill him off. Mazamette arrives and throws the top hat out the window just in time. At Satanas’ home, Eustache is used as a ploy to hide Mazamette in a box, but Satanas sees this through a spy-hole. Satanas threatens Eustache, but Eustache shoots at Satanas, and the police raid the building and arrest him. After the action, they find that Mazamette’s nose has been broken by Eustache’s shot. Meanwhile, Irma is shown to have survived the blast on the ship, and is trying to get back to Paris from under a train. She is helped by the station staff and police, pretending that she is in “one of those eternal love stories beloved by popular imagination.” She makes her way to the Vampire hangout, the “Howling Cat” nightclub, where she performs, and is rapturously greeted by the Vampires. Upon hearing of the arrest of Satanas, one of the Vampires, Venomous (Frederik Moris), appoints himself the new chief. By Satanas’ orders, they mail him an envelope containing a poisoned note, which he eats to commit suicide.

Episode 9 - The Poinsoner

Irma is now a devoted collaborator of Venomous, who is set on getting rid of Philipe and Mazamette. He learns that Philipe is engaged to Jane Bremontier (Louise Lagrange), and the following day Irma and Lily Flower rent an apartment above hers. Irma’s maid, a Vampire also, hears that Philipe and Jane’s engagement party will be catered for by the famous Béchamel House. Venomous cancels their catering order, and on the day of the party the Vampires appear instead. Jane’s mother (Jeanne Marie-Laurent) gives the concierges one bottle of the Vampires' champagne as a present, and just as dinner is served the male concierge, Leon Charlet, drinks it, is poisoned and dies. His wife stops the party guests from drinking their champagne just in time, and the Vampires make a hasty escape. A few days later, Mazamette and Philipe’s mother pick up Jane and her mother in the night in order to take them to a safe retreat near Fontainebleau. Irma, who tries to fill the getaway car with soporific gas, is spotted by Mazamette, but Irma gasses him, and he is taken away asleep while Irma hides in a box on the car. Mazamette is dumped on the street and taken to the police station, believed to be drunk. When he wakens, he calls Philipe to warn him, but Irma slips out of the box and gets away in the car before Philipe can catch her. Irma jumps off the car near the Pyramid Hotel, and calls Venomous to meet her there, but Philipe has also arranged to meet Mazamette there. Philipe spots Irma at the Pyramid Hotel, captures her and ties her up. Philipe and Mazamette leave Irma in Mazamette's car and attempt to ambush Venomous, but Irma honks the car horn to warn him. Venomous saves Irma and drives off in Mazamette’s car, so Philipe and Mazamette chase him in his. Venomous leaps off; Philipe chases Venomous on foot, following him onto the top of a moving train, but Venomous gets away. Mazamette, enraged at the police for not letting him help Philipe on the train, hits one of the officers, who arrest him. At the police station, Philipe and Mazamette carry on so dramatically that the police decide not to book Mazamette, who is after all a famous philanthropist. But the Vampires are still on the loose.

Episode 10 - The Terrible Wedding

A few months after their engagement party, and little news of the Vampires, Philipe and Jane are now married. Augustine Charlet (Germaine Rouer), widow of the poisoned concierge, is invited by the Guérandes to be their chamber maid, which she accepts. The following day, she receives a letter from the Vampires detailing that she should consult Madame d’Alba at 13 Avenue Junot. When she does, Mazamette, who has taken an attraction to her, follows her. Madame d’Alba, a Vampire, hypnotises Augustine and instructs her to unlock the door of Philipe’s apartment at 2 am to let the Vampires in. Mazamette catches her as she leaves, and he promises not to tell Philipe of the incident. Unable to sleep that night, he sees her let the Vampires in, and they tie her up and feed poisonous gas into the Guérandes’ room. He shoots at them and they flee, and Augustine explains her actions. As they go to the police, Venomous tries to break in through a bedroom window, but Jane shoots at him. When she looks out the window she is lassoed down and carried away. At daybreak, the police raid Avenue Junot. Irma and Venomous escape through the roof and drive away, capturing Augustine. Mazamette shoots at the car, causing an oil leak. Philipe follows the trail to the Vampires’ lair and lays traps at nightfall while the gang celebrate the wedding of Irma and Venomous. The police do a large scale police raid at daybreak, while the Vampires are still celebrating. As Irma hides, all of the Vampires are either killed or captured by the police. She confronts their captives, but is shot by Jane. Paris now being safe from the Vampires, Mazamette proposes to Augustine and she accepts.

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The movie was inspired by real events: gangs called Apaches preyed on the French middle class in the years leading up to World War I. One gang in particular, the Bonnot Gang, is cited as being the basis for the Vampires.

As I mentioned earlier, Les Vampires is credited with establishing the crime thriller genre and was influential to directors such as Fritz Lang (M, The Big Heat) and Alfred Hitchcock. You can find certain themes of Les Vampires in later movies by Hitchcock: ordinary people caught in extraordinary circumstances (Philippe and his family members), characters falling from high places (there are a lot of scenes in Les Vampires that involve balconies or rooftop windows), food + death (one character is poisoned and killed at an engagement dinner), and violence in public places (innocents are terrorized at a party, a hotel, etc.).

Irma Vep is the first femme fatale to appear in a movie on the 1001 list, even though that archetypal character was already in use by other filmmakers at the time. (Ultimate real-life femme fatale Mata Hari would go down in history for meeting her demise just one year after the final episode of Les Vampires was released). Even before this film was made, there existed a connection between vampire and femme fatale: femme fatales were described as "sexual vampires" who seduced their male counterparts and sucked all the willpower out of them, thus rendering them helpless to the dark females' evil plans. This is why vixen-y female characters are called "vamps." Proof of Irma Vep's vamp-ness: she switches sides with at least one foe during the movie and becomes his lover; she is a cabaret-style performer and a "deadly woman" (the literal translation of femme fatale).

Fun fact - In 1996, French director Olivier Assayas made a film called Irma Vep that revolves around a fictional remaking of Les Vampires starring Maggie Cheung. If you search for "Irma Vep" on Google, the results will pop up with a bunch of pictures showing Maggie Cheung in a black bodysuit.

Although Les Vampires was criticized at its release for "not having the artistry of a D.W. Griffith film," there were a lot of striking visuals that stuck with me.

Episode 2 - A ballerina costumed as a vampire bat descends onto the stage and begins her eerie dance, only to then die suddenly during the performance.

Episode 8 - Mazamette and his son go to the Grand Vampire's house to investigate. The Grand Vampire sends his manservant out to greet them, but watches through a mask he has installed in the wall that lets him spy on the entryway.

Cross-section of the two rooms as the Grand Vampire watches his guests enter.

The mask as it looks from the front. Mazamette and his son have no idea they are being watched.

There are also a couple of scenes that use stop-motion.

Philippe comes across this sign, and as the camera shows it from his point of view, the letters move around to reveal their hidden meaning (Irma Vep's name is an anagram for Vampire). I did not know stop motion had been in use this early! Pretty cool.

Mazamette's son randomly shows up in episode 8 after never having been mentioned throughout the previous episodes. Like his dad, he provides a lot of comic relief, but then he disappears again and is never mentioned in episodes 9 or 10. I wish they had used that child actor more because he was pretty funny and brought some lightheartedness to the film. His name in the film is "Eustache" while the elder Mazamette's first name is "Oscar-Cloud" but he's usually just called Mazamette.

The guy who plays Mazamette (Marcel Levesque) is perfect. Just look at him! He oozes comedy. There's even a scene in the last episode where some other characters make fun of his big nose. Mazamette has now been added to my list of great supporting characters in movies and literature.

Musidoria (Irma Vep) would go on to be a star of French cinema, and director Louis Feuillade kept cranking out his own films. He directed over 630 films (!!!!!) between 1906 and 1924. Maybe that's why he looks so pleased with himself here.

"Yep, I'm pretty awesome. I mean, just look at my mustache! C'est magnifique!"