Fantômas
Fictional character / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Fantômas (French: [fɑ̃tomas]) is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain (1885–1969) and Pierre Souvestre (1874–1914).
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Fantômas | |
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First appearance | Fantômas (1911) |
Last appearance | Fantômas Mène le Bal (1963) |
Created by | Marcel Allain Pierre Souvestre |
Portrayed by | René Navarre Edward Roseman Jean Galland Marcel Herrand Maurice Teynac Jean Marais Helmut Berger |
Voiced by | Paul Bernard Raymond Pellegrin Roger Carel Philippe Clay Med Hondo |
In-universe information | |
Alias | Archduke Juan North |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Serial killer Criminal mastermind |
Children | Vladimir (last name unknown) |
Nationality | Unknown |
One of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction, Fantômas was created in 1911 and appeared in a total of 32 volumes written by the two collaborators, then a subsequent 11 volumes written by Allain alone after Souvestre's death. The character was also the basis of various film, television, and comic book adaptations. In the history of crime fiction, he represents a transition from Gothic novel villains of the 19th century to modern-day serial killers and supervillains.
The books and films were released in rapid succession anticipated current production methods of Hollywood, in two respects:[1] First, the authors distributed the writing among themselves; their "working method was to draw up the general plot between them and then go off and write alternate chapters independently of each other, meeting up to tie the two halves of the story together in the final chapter".[1] This approach allowed the authors to produce almost one novel per month. Second, the film rights to the books were immediately snapped up, ensuring that the film studio could produce sequels reliably.
The popular depiction of Fantômas as wearing a blue mask and black gloves and using technological devices did not originate in the novels, but is a result of the popularity of the trilogy of Fantômas films directed by André Hunebelle in the 1960s. The trilogy, which started in 1964 with Fantômas, departed considerably from the novels by giving the story a more comedic tone as preceded by the first two Pink Panther films, and by making Fantômas (played by Jean Marais) more of a James Bond enemy by likewise borrowing from the first two Bond films. Despite these discrepancies, the blue-masked Fantômas is arguably the one that is most easily remembered.