[7] There is no doubt that Breton and his associates, all fervent fans of early cinema – especially horror film, the pulp serials (which they described as “beyond fashion! beyond taste!”) and slapstick comedies – were also much swayed by Louis Feuillade’s five classic film adaptations of Fantômas (1913–14). Feuillade brilliantly brought the novels to life and evoked a compelling urban poetry, yet it seems equally certain that it was to the entire body of the novels that the Surrealists returned when meting out praise for Fantômas. It should be noted that Feuillade, restricted by censorship codes, was unable to fully reproduce the graphic violence of the originals that many Surrealists found so addictive. Nonetheless, later film versions pale by comparison to Feuillade; an Italian production, shot in 1964, is a travesty in nearly every respect, and is noteworthy only for the presence of French actor Jean Marais in the title role. Marais was, of course, the long-time lover of Jean Cocteau, appearing in several Cocteau films, and Cocteau himself was an open admirer of Fantômas, praising the serial’s “absurd and magnificent lyricism”. The Genius of Evil only figured once in a “Surrealist” film – by one of the minor Belgian Surrealists – being adapted to the screen in Ernst Moerman's 1936 short, Mr. Fantômas, Chapitre 280,000. Pierre Prévert's 1928 film, Paris la Belle, featured a Fantômas book cover in the closing sequence.

The Surrealist connection extends, although somewhat tenuously, as far forward as 1980, when two episodes of a Fantômas series of four 90-minute episodes (starring Helmut Berger as Fantômas, Jacques Dufilho as Juve and Gayle Hunnicutt as Lady Beltham) were directed by Juan Luis Buñuel, son of the legendary Surrealist film-maker (the other two episodes were directed by Claude Chabrol, the “French Hitchcock”). The younger Buñuel’s efforts included an adaptation of The Corpse Who Kills.

FOREWORD

FANTOMAS: THE CORPSE WHO KILLS ( Le Mort Qui Tue) was preceded by volumes 1 and 2 in the Fantômas serial: Fantômas and Juve Contre Fantômas[1]. For the benefit of the present reader, there follows a brief indicator of the serial storyline, and main characters, thus far.