Fantômas unmasked

What a strange phenomenon Fantomas is! For many, the masked character evokes the films of André Hunebelle in the middle of the 60s, with Jean Marais, Louis de Funès and Mylène Demongeot. True cinematographic Proust’s madeleines, unforgettable childhood memories, these films have entered the national collective memory and the heritage of French cinema, in particular thanks to the facetiousness of an overexcited Louis de Funès, whose career took off with the enormous success of this trilogy. However, it is not so simple. And the first to remind us of this, as early as 1968, was Marcel Allain. Marcel Allain, inventor with Pierre Souvestre of the character, choked on the films, attacked the producers and won his case. Allain explains: Fantomas, the real one, is dark, hard, bad. He is a killer and a thief without faith or law, who plunges good society into terror with his bands of apaches that he holds in virtual slavery. Fantomas is not blue, he is black. He is not funny, he is terrifying. He is not threatened by the police because he is the one who threatens them. He does not address children but adults. He is not the stooge of commissioner Juve because he is the real hero.