SUPER KRIME
When humanity has been driven insane by fear and horror, and when chaos has become supreme law, then the time will have come for the empire of krime!
Films in this Program
Hélène Cattet
Bruno Forzani
87 minutes
Retired septuagenarian gentleman John D. is languishing his days away at a swanky French beachside resort when the beautiful young woman next door disappears, sending him spiraling into the past. Once a hotshot international superspy at the top of his game, he’s haunted anew by the memory of the fateful mission, the sequin-clad secret agent, and the sultry, shape-shifting villainess in fetish wear, Serpentik, that collide in his melancholic reveries. Is he waxing sentimental, trapped in an existential limbo — or still caught in the crosshairs of his old enemies?
Slicing with head-spinning freneticism between John D. in the present and his suave younger self, filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani unleash bursts of impeccably stylized sensuality and violence as they simultaneously craft a lavish genre deconstruction and loving homage to 1960s espionage and exploitation cinema icons, from James Bond to Mario Bava’s Diabolik. In their audacious hands — and with gorgeous production design, costumes, and a few memorably deployed fish hooks — kaleidoscopic layers of nostalgia, identity, and cinema blur into a mesmerizing arthouse pastiche that reveals that time is truly the ultimate enemy.
Slicing with head-spinning freneticism between John D. in the present and his suave younger self, filmmakers Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani unleash bursts of impeccably stylized sensuality and violence as they simultaneously craft a lavish genre deconstruction and loving homage to 1960s espionage and exploitation cinema icons, from James Bond to Mario Bava’s Diabolik. In their audacious hands — and with gorgeous production design, costumes, and a few memorably deployed fish hooks — kaleidoscopic layers of nostalgia, identity, and cinema blur into a mesmerizing arthouse pastiche that reveals that time is truly the ultimate enemy.
Louis Feuillade
105 minutes
“Fantômas.”
“What did you say?”
“I said: Fantômas.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Nothing. . . . Everything!”
“But what is it?”
“Nobody. . . . And yet it is somebody!”
“And what does the somebody do?”
“Spread terror!”
Louis Feuillade's astonishing string of FANTÔMAS motion pictures produced from 1913 to 1914 are not only ground zero for cinematic super crime, they are an opportunity to witness the birth of cinema as popular art before your very eyes.
René Navarre stars as the criminal lord of Paris, the master of disguise, the creeping assassin in black: Fantômas. This dapper and mysterious figure holds Paris in a grip of terror and commands an army of street thugs to do his nefarious bidding. Facing him is his nemesis, Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon), and Juve's friend, journalist Jerôme Fandor (Georges Melchior), who will stop at nothing to bring the criminal genius down.
Cinephiles, crime fans, avant-garde artists, and mass audiences have found the FANTÔMAS films anxiety-provoking, even hallucinatory. The delirious imagery and plot twists are felt to harbor a demented poetry, an existential frisson that unmoors us from rationality and makes us feel the secret currents swirling through the modern city. They arouse our love of narrative invention and dazzle us with flourishes of cinematic style. The conventions of the genre, all the disguises and elaborate schemes and surprising revelations engineered by the Genius behind the scenes, the cascades of coincidence and the hairbreadth escapes aren’t merely enjoyable in themselves. They show how little plausibility matters to storytelling. So let Fantômas make your flesh creep, if your flesh is creepward inclined.
The Beacon is proud to present a special, reworked version of Feuillade's films, condensed and rearranged into a single narrative and presented with a new accompaniment of avant-garde club music to underline the super kriminal reign of terror!
“What did you say?”
“I said: Fantômas.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Nothing. . . . Everything!”
“But what is it?”
“Nobody. . . . And yet it is somebody!”
“And what does the somebody do?”
“Spread terror!”
Louis Feuillade's astonishing string of FANTÔMAS motion pictures produced from 1913 to 1914 are not only ground zero for cinematic super crime, they are an opportunity to witness the birth of cinema as popular art before your very eyes.
René Navarre stars as the criminal lord of Paris, the master of disguise, the creeping assassin in black: Fantômas. This dapper and mysterious figure holds Paris in a grip of terror and commands an army of street thugs to do his nefarious bidding. Facing him is his nemesis, Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon), and Juve's friend, journalist Jerôme Fandor (Georges Melchior), who will stop at nothing to bring the criminal genius down.
Cinephiles, crime fans, avant-garde artists, and mass audiences have found the FANTÔMAS films anxiety-provoking, even hallucinatory. The delirious imagery and plot twists are felt to harbor a demented poetry, an existential frisson that unmoors us from rationality and makes us feel the secret currents swirling through the modern city. They arouse our love of narrative invention and dazzle us with flourishes of cinematic style. The conventions of the genre, all the disguises and elaborate schemes and surprising revelations engineered by the Genius behind the scenes, the cascades of coincidence and the hairbreadth escapes aren’t merely enjoyable in themselves. They show how little plausibility matters to storytelling. So let Fantômas make your flesh creep, if your flesh is creepward inclined.
The Beacon is proud to present a special, reworked version of Feuillade's films, condensed and rearranged into a single narrative and presented with a new accompaniment of avant-garde club music to underline the super kriminal reign of terror!
Fritz Lang
124 minutes
Locked away in an asylum for a decade and teetering between life and death, the criminal mastermind Doctor Mabuse (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) has scribbled his last will and testament: a manifesto establishing a future empire of crime. When the document’s nefarious writings start leading to terrifying parallels in reality, it’s up to Berlin’s star detective, Inspector Lohmann (Otto Wernicke, reprising his role from Lang’s M) to connect the most fragmented, maddening clues in a case unlike any other.
A sequel to his enormously successful silent film DR, MABUSE THE GAMBLER, Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE reunites the director with the character that had effectively launched his career. Lang put slogans and ideas expounded by the Nazis into the mouth of a madman, warning his audience of an imminent menace, which was soon to become a reality. Nazi Minister of Information Joseph Goebbels saw the film as an instruction manual for terrorist action against the government and banned it for “endangering public order and security.” A landmark of mystery and suspense for countless espionage and noir thrillers to come, this is the complete, uncut original director’s version.
A sequel to his enormously successful silent film DR, MABUSE THE GAMBLER, Fritz Lang's THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE reunites the director with the character that had effectively launched his career. Lang put slogans and ideas expounded by the Nazis into the mouth of a madman, warning his audience of an imminent menace, which was soon to become a reality. Nazi Minister of Information Joseph Goebbels saw the film as an instruction manual for terrorist action against the government and banned it for “endangering public order and security.” A landmark of mystery and suspense for countless espionage and noir thrillers to come, this is the complete, uncut original director’s version.
Louis Feuillade
117 minutes
A secret organization of ruthless criminals known as The Vampires haunts the streets and ballrooms of Paris. Journalist Philippe Guérande seeks to unravel their nefarious plot. At the center of it all stands the mysterious and elusive muse to the criminals, Irma Vep, brought to life with a dangerously seductive glamour by the legendary Musidora.
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Kinji Fukasaku
86 minutes
“Black Lizard, you are an old-fashioned romanticist. In this age, soiled by corruption and murder, you believe that crime should wear a gorgeous gown, with a train fifteen feet long.”
From the infamous 1969 pinku film HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN, to Koji Wakamatsu’s 2010 film CATERPILLAR, legendary pulp novelist Ranpo Edogawa’s demented works have inspired Japanese artists and directors for the better part of a century.
One of his enduring creations is BLACK LIZARD, a femme fatale jewel thief who appeared in a detective serial in the 30s. In the 60s, Yukio Mishima wrote a stage adaptation of her story, and his interpretation in turn became the basis of Kinji Fukasaku’s film. In its fixation on the relationship between death and beauty, Mishima’s hand is evident—even before he makes a cameo as a human taxidermy specimen.
Akihiro Miwa, a celebrated female impersonator and Mishima’s close friend, plays the lead role fairly straight, even with a kind of queenly grace. The film itself is refreshingly sincere in its weirdness, never inviting laughter at its bewigged star, or even at its objectively wacked-out plot. Which is not to say that it isn’t funny, just that it probably wasn’t conceived as the campy marvel it is.
From the infamous 1969 pinku film HORRORS OF MALFORMED MEN, to Koji Wakamatsu’s 2010 film CATERPILLAR, legendary pulp novelist Ranpo Edogawa’s demented works have inspired Japanese artists and directors for the better part of a century.
One of his enduring creations is BLACK LIZARD, a femme fatale jewel thief who appeared in a detective serial in the 30s. In the 60s, Yukio Mishima wrote a stage adaptation of her story, and his interpretation in turn became the basis of Kinji Fukasaku’s film. In its fixation on the relationship between death and beauty, Mishima’s hand is evident—even before he makes a cameo as a human taxidermy specimen.
Akihiro Miwa, a celebrated female impersonator and Mishima’s close friend, plays the lead role fairly straight, even with a kind of queenly grace. The film itself is refreshingly sincere in its weirdness, never inviting laughter at its bewigged star, or even at its objectively wacked-out plot. Which is not to say that it isn’t funny, just that it probably wasn’t conceived as the campy marvel it is.
Mario Bava
105 minutes
Better known for his excursions in the horror genre, director Mario Bava’s excursion into the crime caper—and his lone trip to Hollywood—produced this eye-popping pop art curio, an adaptation of an Italian comic book series underwritten by producer Dino De Laurentiis, fresh off the success of BARBARELLA, and featuring one of Ennio Morricone’s most exuberantly experimental scores. Arch-criminal Diabolik (John Phillip Law) and his girlfriend Eva (Marisa Mell) stay one step ahead of Michel Piccoli’s Inspector Ginko in this garishly colored, kinetic masterwork of cinematic artifice and amoral indulgence.
"A visually intoxicating candy colored magic trick—slick, absurd in the most poetic way, and easily the greatest comic book movie. Bava going full Bava... a psychotronic freakout of absolute imagination loaded with everything I’d ever want from a comic strip turned kinetic energy film reel." - Ian West
"A visually intoxicating candy colored magic trick—slick, absurd in the most poetic way, and easily the greatest comic book movie. Bava going full Bava... a psychotronic freakout of absolute imagination loaded with everything I’d ever want from a comic strip turned kinetic energy film reel." - Ian West
William Cameron Menzies
Marcel Varnel
Charles Brabin
71 minutes + 68 minutes
A SUPER KRIME DOUBLE FEATURE!
Magic, malevolence and mystery highlight CHANDU THE MAGICIAN starring horror legend Bela Lugosi as the evil lunatic Roxor set on destroying mankind with a gigantic death-dealing device. Mankind's only hope is Frank Chandler, a.k.a. Chandu The Magician (Edmund Lowe), who calls upon mystical abilities to fight the megalomaniacal fiend. A rare co-directorial effort from the god of all production designers, William Cameron Menzies shows that a strong imagination can yank the screen away from weak directors, and exceed the limits of reality in the most unforgettably dreamlike ways.
Boris Karloff takes one his most celebrated cinematics turn as the diabolical fiend Dr. Fu Manchu, and Myrna Loy plays his exotic daughter in the delirious yellow peril fever dream known as THE MASK OF FU MANCHU. The evil genius Fu Manchu patiently awaits the discovery of Genghis Khan's tomb, certain that possession of Khan's relics will enable him to rule the East and lead it to victory over the hated Western world. When British scientists in the Gobi Desert discover the tomb, Fu captures and tortures them in his elaborate Torture Garden, hoping they will take him to the treasure he craves. Warning! This film is undeniably racist, featuring Karloff in unthinkably distasteful yellowface makeup. But it remains watchably compelling in the 21st century as we identify not with the protagonists but with Fu Manchu and his hatred of the colonial White race as he brings anti-imperial horror upon his enemies in the most gruesome, deliciously pre-code ways imaginable.
Magic, malevolence and mystery highlight CHANDU THE MAGICIAN starring horror legend Bela Lugosi as the evil lunatic Roxor set on destroying mankind with a gigantic death-dealing device. Mankind's only hope is Frank Chandler, a.k.a. Chandu The Magician (Edmund Lowe), who calls upon mystical abilities to fight the megalomaniacal fiend. A rare co-directorial effort from the god of all production designers, William Cameron Menzies shows that a strong imagination can yank the screen away from weak directors, and exceed the limits of reality in the most unforgettably dreamlike ways.
Boris Karloff takes one his most celebrated cinematics turn as the diabolical fiend Dr. Fu Manchu, and Myrna Loy plays his exotic daughter in the delirious yellow peril fever dream known as THE MASK OF FU MANCHU. The evil genius Fu Manchu patiently awaits the discovery of Genghis Khan's tomb, certain that possession of Khan's relics will enable him to rule the East and lead it to victory over the hated Western world. When British scientists in the Gobi Desert discover the tomb, Fu captures and tortures them in his elaborate Torture Garden, hoping they will take him to the treasure he craves. Warning! This film is undeniably racist, featuring Karloff in unthinkably distasteful yellowface makeup. But it remains watchably compelling in the 21st century as we identify not with the protagonists but with Fu Manchu and his hatred of the colonial White race as he brings anti-imperial horror upon his enemies in the most gruesome, deliciously pre-code ways imaginable.
Louis Feuillade
135 minutes
A secret organization of ruthless criminals known as The Vampires haunts the streets and ballrooms of Paris. Journalist Philippe Guérande seeks to unravel their nefarious plot. At the center of it all stands the mysterious and elusive muse to the criminals, Irma Vep, brought to life with a dangerously seductive glamour by the legendary Musidora.
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chang-hwa Jeong
83 minutes
The Shaw Bros do Super Krime!
A delirious artifact from the twilight zone of late-’60s spy-fi exploitation cinema, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES is a kaleidoscope of shifting identities, erotic menace, and pop-art paranoia. The film follows a mysterious female criminal whose appearance—and allegiance—seems to change from scene to scene, ensnaring a rotating cast of hustlers, revolutionaries, and would-be saviors in a maze of seduction and betrayal. Part spy thriller, part LSD fantasia, it plays like a stack of pulp paperbacks set on fire and projected straight onto the screen. Equal parts camp and weirdly unsettling, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES rewards viewers who enjoy cinema at its most unruly—where narrative slips, masks multiply, and nothing stays fixed for long.
"This is without question the most fun and playful time I've had at the movies all year, an orgasmic mishmash of virtually everything that hits the highest pleasure centers of my brain. As funny as the Pink Panther series, as suspenseful and intriguing as any Bond outing, as candy-colored and costumed as DANGER: DIABOLIK, as dementedly ridiculous as BATMAN '66 or any silent French caper serial, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES hits an all time high of thrills while stretching the outer limits of pop-expressionism." - Tim Garlitz
A delirious artifact from the twilight zone of late-’60s spy-fi exploitation cinema, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES is a kaleidoscope of shifting identities, erotic menace, and pop-art paranoia. The film follows a mysterious female criminal whose appearance—and allegiance—seems to change from scene to scene, ensnaring a rotating cast of hustlers, revolutionaries, and would-be saviors in a maze of seduction and betrayal. Part spy thriller, part LSD fantasia, it plays like a stack of pulp paperbacks set on fire and projected straight onto the screen. Equal parts camp and weirdly unsettling, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES rewards viewers who enjoy cinema at its most unruly—where narrative slips, masks multiply, and nothing stays fixed for long.
"This is without question the most fun and playful time I've had at the movies all year, an orgasmic mishmash of virtually everything that hits the highest pleasure centers of my brain. As funny as the Pink Panther series, as suspenseful and intriguing as any Bond outing, as candy-colored and costumed as DANGER: DIABOLIK, as dementedly ridiculous as BATMAN '66 or any silent French caper serial, TEMPTRESS OF A THOUSAND FACES hits an all time high of thrills while stretching the outer limits of pop-expressionism." - Tim Garlitz
Roland West
83 minutes
"The raided bank! The haunted halls! The hidden chamber! The flitting omen of ill! The ghostly shades! The disguised strangers! The hysterical maid! And the stirring tempo of a thousand terrors, gasps and laughs!"
In his time, Roland West was one of the most ambitious visual stylists working in Hollywood. Always seeking to break the barriers of convention, he sent the camera floating, falling, and rolling through space via an eclectic mixture of cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned special effects. THE BAT WHISPERS is West's most visually adventurous film, a remake of his own 1926 old dark house thriller THE BAT.
The Bat, a master criminal who dares the police to catch him, has been terrifying the city. A bank is robbed, and the home of the bank president becomes the center of mysterious happenings. Amidst thrills, chills and laughs, the stolen money is discovered, and the Bat's secret identity is revealed! The plot is lunacy, but there are images here that seem to have escaped from the collective unconscious.
THE BAT WHISPERS was shot using an experimental format called Magnifilm—a 65mm widescreen process that pre-dates CinemaScope by decades—but was soon after cropped and cut down, unable to be seen in its original form for decades. But original elements were finally located by Robert Gitt of the UCLA Film Archives and the original 65mm Magnifilm version of has been beautifully retored to its original glory!
In his time, Roland West was one of the most ambitious visual stylists working in Hollywood. Always seeking to break the barriers of convention, he sent the camera floating, falling, and rolling through space via an eclectic mixture of cutting-edge technology and old-fashioned special effects. THE BAT WHISPERS is West's most visually adventurous film, a remake of his own 1926 old dark house thriller THE BAT.
The Bat, a master criminal who dares the police to catch him, has been terrifying the city. A bank is robbed, and the home of the bank president becomes the center of mysterious happenings. Amidst thrills, chills and laughs, the stolen money is discovered, and the Bat's secret identity is revealed! The plot is lunacy, but there are images here that seem to have escaped from the collective unconscious.
THE BAT WHISPERS was shot using an experimental format called Magnifilm—a 65mm widescreen process that pre-dates CinemaScope by decades—but was soon after cropped and cut down, unable to be seen in its original form for decades. But original elements were finally located by Robert Gitt of the UCLA Film Archives and the original 65mm Magnifilm version of has been beautifully retored to its original glory!
Fritz Lang
103 minutes
The legendary director Fritz Lang’s reputation was built in large part on the success of his early German films featuring the criminal mastermind known only as Dr. Mabuse. Near the end of his life, Lang returned to Germany and created a picture that, in closing the saga he began nearly forty years earlier, brought his career full-circle, and would come to represent his final celluloid testament—by extension: his final film masterpiece.
THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE finds that diabolical Weimar name resurfacing in the Cold War era, linked to a new methodology of murder and mayhem. Seances, assassinations, and Nazi-engineered surveillance tech—all abound in Lang’s paranoid, and ultimate, filmic labyrinth. One of the great and cherished “last films” in the history of cinema, THE THOUSAND EYES provides a stylistic glimpse into the 1960s works on such subjects as sex-crime, youth-culture, and LSD that Lang would unfortunately never come to realise. Nonetheless, Lang’s final film remains an explosive, and definitive, closing statement. It’s a breathless, complex and awesome piece of cinema meditating on the imbrication of cinematic looking and of unrestrained power.
THE THOUSAND EYES OF DR. MABUSE finds that diabolical Weimar name resurfacing in the Cold War era, linked to a new methodology of murder and mayhem. Seances, assassinations, and Nazi-engineered surveillance tech—all abound in Lang’s paranoid, and ultimate, filmic labyrinth. One of the great and cherished “last films” in the history of cinema, THE THOUSAND EYES provides a stylistic glimpse into the 1960s works on such subjects as sex-crime, youth-culture, and LSD that Lang would unfortunately never come to realise. Nonetheless, Lang’s final film remains an explosive, and definitive, closing statement. It’s a breathless, complex and awesome piece of cinema meditating on the imbrication of cinematic looking and of unrestrained power.
Louis Feuillade
160 minutes
A secret organization of ruthless criminals known as The Vampires haunts the streets and ballrooms of Paris. Journalist Philippe Guérande seeks to unravel their nefarious plot. At the center of it all stands the mysterious and elusive muse to the criminals, Irma Vep, brought to life with a dangerously seductive glamour by the legendary Musidora.
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
The undisputed master of the serialized thriller, Louis Feuillade crafted films with labyrinthine plots and unforgettable characters that influenced multiple generations of filmmakers. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, LES VAMPIRES is an unqualified masterpiece. Shot largely in the streets of Paris and its suburbs, in dingy shacks and basements, and in ornate Belle Epoque interiors, the film revels in the familiar and the everyday, only to explode with unexpected eruptions that transform this peaceful world into a charged universe of unlimited evil and corruption.
Join us over the course of three Wednesday evenings as we undertake an investigation into the sprawling film that hovers like a sinister ghost over the entire history of cinema!
“One of the supreme pleasures in all of cinema, LES VAMPIRES, a thrilling ten-part serial released in France in 1915 and 1916, came out during the same period as THE BIRTH OF A NATION and INTOLERANCE. Yet the odd thing about this conjunction is that, far from being contemporaries, D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) and Louis Feuillade (1873-1925) seem to belong to different centuries. While Griffith’s work reeks of Victorian morality and nostalgia for the mid-19th century, Feuillade looks ahead to the global paranoia, conspiratorial intrigues, and SF technological fantasies of the current century, right up to today. Alone among cinema’s pioneers, Feuillade implies that the past 70-odd years of moviemaking may be far less essential than most of us have supposed. As critic David Thomson puts it, he is ‘the first director for whom no historical allowances need to be made.’ Come to think of it, he is probably one of the last as well.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Claude Barma
290 minutes
BELPHEGOR, OR THE PHANTOM OF THE LOUVRE is what might happen if Jacques Rivette made a Tintin show.
Originally broadcast on television over four suspenseful weeks in 1965, BELPHEGOR was an unprecedented pop sensation that captivated and terrified all of France. This is "prestige TV" from 40 years before "prestige TV." We'll be presenting the series, complete with all murders, apparitions and alchemy, in its entirity.
The sinister, ghostly presence of the mysterious Belphegor is haunting the Louvre, seeking the Treasure of the Kings of France. Against him are pitted the indomitable Commissioner Menadier and an intrepid young student, André Bellegarde, who has his own reasons for wanting to catch this eerie apparition. A duel to the death begins between the murderous Phantom of the Louvre and his enemies throughout the City of Lights.
Based on a novel written in 1927 by Arthur Bernède, the author of JUDEX, this classic of French criminal literature spawned no less than three motion pictures, one television serial and one animated show. This serial, however, remains the definitive cinematic adaptation, bringing out a spirit of pulp adventure along with an unshakable sensation of fear and supernatural menace, always lurking just below the surface.
"Loved the spooky traps hidden within traps hidden within traps and shadow world secret organizations crawling right beneath the surface of '60s Paris in all its high fashion sports car carpe diem glory. I can definitely see how this series' kooky characters and double identities and other worlds impacted other long form like OUT 1 and even TWIN PEAKS." - Patrick Pryor
"One of the best pieces of television I have ever seen. Truly magical." - Ian Lheor
Originally broadcast on television over four suspenseful weeks in 1965, BELPHEGOR was an unprecedented pop sensation that captivated and terrified all of France. This is "prestige TV" from 40 years before "prestige TV." We'll be presenting the series, complete with all murders, apparitions and alchemy, in its entirity.
The sinister, ghostly presence of the mysterious Belphegor is haunting the Louvre, seeking the Treasure of the Kings of France. Against him are pitted the indomitable Commissioner Menadier and an intrepid young student, André Bellegarde, who has his own reasons for wanting to catch this eerie apparition. A duel to the death begins between the murderous Phantom of the Louvre and his enemies throughout the City of Lights.
Based on a novel written in 1927 by Arthur Bernède, the author of JUDEX, this classic of French criminal literature spawned no less than three motion pictures, one television serial and one animated show. This serial, however, remains the definitive cinematic adaptation, bringing out a spirit of pulp adventure along with an unshakable sensation of fear and supernatural menace, always lurking just below the surface.
"Loved the spooky traps hidden within traps hidden within traps and shadow world secret organizations crawling right beneath the surface of '60s Paris in all its high fashion sports car carpe diem glory. I can definitely see how this series' kooky characters and double identities and other worlds impacted other long form like OUT 1 and even TWIN PEAKS." - Patrick Pryor
"One of the best pieces of television I have ever seen. Truly magical." - Ian Lheor
Alfred Vohrer
98 minutes
The uniquely German film genre known as “krimi” is a vein of crime thrillers inspired by the novels of British mystery writer Edgar Wallace. Beginning in the late ‘50s, krimi films feature a madcap blend of elements: horror, crime, mystery, and police procedural, with elements of fantasy and science fiction, resulting in an often surreal mashup of genre tropes. They follow a simple format inspired by the crime serial of silent filmmakers like Louis Feuillade: a detective, generally from Scotland Yard, is hot on the trail of a criminal mastermind and must wade through an outlandish sea of potential suspects. Red herrings and fake identities abound. The antagonists are usually masked members of a fantastical criminal conspiracy. We’ve selected one of the best for inclusion in our series on Super Krime.
In THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON, wealthy, heavily insured men are being murdered at an alarming rate. Scotland Yard investigates and finds clues that lead to a ring of blind men, led by a mysterious “reverend.” Alfred Vohrer's first entry as director in the krimi genre hits all the right marks: stylish, absurd, and full of the secret passages, secret identities, and sadistic murders that make the German Wallace mysteries stand out as altogether more cartoonish, bold and salacious than what anyone else was doing at the time. And this one features plenty of screen time from the most terrifying man to ever become an actor: Klaus Kinski! Pure pulp pleasure.
In THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON, wealthy, heavily insured men are being murdered at an alarming rate. Scotland Yard investigates and finds clues that lead to a ring of blind men, led by a mysterious “reverend.” Alfred Vohrer's first entry as director in the krimi genre hits all the right marks: stylish, absurd, and full of the secret passages, secret identities, and sadistic murders that make the German Wallace mysteries stand out as altogether more cartoonish, bold and salacious than what anyone else was doing at the time. And this one features plenty of screen time from the most terrifying man to ever become an actor: Klaus Kinski! Pure pulp pleasure.
Georges Franju
105 minutes
The mysterious Man Without a Face plots to steal the hidden treasure of a secret sect of the Order of the Knights Templar in an over-the-top adventure involving lost treasure, murder, underground ceremonies, mad scientists, robots, and a mind-controlled zombie army. NUITS ROUGES was surrealist Georges Franju’s (EYES WITHOUT A FACE, JUDEX) final tribute to the silent serials of Louis Feuillade—aggressively and joyfully escalating the absurdity of the bygone fantastique-crime genre, propelling it into a raucous, garish, and atmospheric film that blends high camp, anti-fascism, moody dream reality, and winking postmodern détournement!
"Every cut is an invitation to open a mystery box and to see something fantastic: zombie henchman, catsuit kriminals, Templar ceremonies, a poet detective, a daring train heist... I'm probably overrating it, but this stuff just puts such a stupid grin on my face." - Laird Jimenez
"Every cut is an invitation to open a mystery box and to see something fantastic: zombie henchman, catsuit kriminals, Templar ceremonies, a poet detective, a daring train heist... I'm probably overrating it, but this stuff just puts such a stupid grin on my face." - Laird Jimenez
Jacques Rivette
386 minutes
Paris, April 13th 1970. Two theater groups each rehearse avant-garde adaptations of plays by Aeschylus. A young deaf-mute begs for change in cafés while playing the harmonica. A young woman seduces men in order to rob them. As a conspiracy develops, the protagonists stories start to intertwine...
Jacques Rivette, co-founder of the French New Wave, has always been that group's most free-spirited and aesthetically radical member. This is very much on display in OUT 1, his magnum opus, in which a whimsical young man (Jean-Pierre Léaud) receives anonymous notes that put him on the trail of a mysterious group of people who might or might not be conspirators.
Based on an utterly unique concept that includes the absence of a script and nods to Honoré de Balzac and Lewis Carroll, OUT 1 is a sprawling giant of a film and an enriching and timeless reference. One way to understand this mammoth work is as a product of the dawning realization, at the beginning of the 1970s, that the utopian hopes of the previous decade were not going to be realized. Always one to express himself playfully and indirectly, Rivette builds this sprawling epic around the vague notion of a vast conspiracy that may control everything or nothing.
Much of the film unfolds almost like a board game: the moves of various characters were set up to produce episodic encounters whose exact content was often not determined in advance. What gradually emerges is a filmic labyrinth whose cumulative force is received not so much as a unified narrative or accrued meaning, but rather as a vast reflection on the seemingly aleatory nature of modern life and cinema’s potential to intersect with it in a ludic fashion. As Rivette himself put it, "'play', in all senses of the word, was the only idea."
The Beacon Cinema will present the entirety of OUT 1 over the course of two days, February 7th and 8th. Don't miss your chance to experience this incomparable masterpiece in the cinema!
Jacques Rivette, co-founder of the French New Wave, has always been that group's most free-spirited and aesthetically radical member. This is very much on display in OUT 1, his magnum opus, in which a whimsical young man (Jean-Pierre Léaud) receives anonymous notes that put him on the trail of a mysterious group of people who might or might not be conspirators.
Based on an utterly unique concept that includes the absence of a script and nods to Honoré de Balzac and Lewis Carroll, OUT 1 is a sprawling giant of a film and an enriching and timeless reference. One way to understand this mammoth work is as a product of the dawning realization, at the beginning of the 1970s, that the utopian hopes of the previous decade were not going to be realized. Always one to express himself playfully and indirectly, Rivette builds this sprawling epic around the vague notion of a vast conspiracy that may control everything or nothing.
Much of the film unfolds almost like a board game: the moves of various characters were set up to produce episodic encounters whose exact content was often not determined in advance. What gradually emerges is a filmic labyrinth whose cumulative force is received not so much as a unified narrative or accrued meaning, but rather as a vast reflection on the seemingly aleatory nature of modern life and cinema’s potential to intersect with it in a ludic fashion. As Rivette himself put it, "'play', in all senses of the word, was the only idea."
The Beacon Cinema will present the entirety of OUT 1 over the course of two days, February 7th and 8th. Don't miss your chance to experience this incomparable masterpiece in the cinema!
Jacques Rivette
386 minutes
Paris, April 13th 1970. Two theater groups each rehearse avant-garde adaptations of plays by Aeschylus. A young deaf-mute begs for change in cafés while playing the harmonica. A young woman seduces men in order to rob them. As a conspiracy develops, the protagonists stories start to intertwine...
Jacques Rivette, co-founder of the French New Wave, has always been that group's most free-spirited and aesthetically radical member. This is very much on display in OUT 1, his magnum opus, in which a whimsical young man (Jean-Pierre Léaud) receives anonymous notes that put him on the trail of a mysterious group of people who might or might not be conspirators.
Based on an utterly unique concept that includes the absence of a script and nods to Honoré de Balzac and Lewis Carroll, OUT 1 is a sprawling giant of a film and an enriching and timeless reference. One way to understand this mammoth work is as a product of the dawning realization, at the beginning of the 1970s, that the utopian hopes of the previous decade were not going to be realized. Always one to express himself playfully and indirectly, Rivette builds this sprawling epic around the vague notion of a vast conspiracy that may control everything or nothing.
Much of the film unfolds almost like a board game: the moves of various characters were set up to produce episodic encounters whose exact content was often not determined in advance. What gradually emerges is a filmic labyrinth whose cumulative force is received not so much as a unified narrative or accrued meaning, but rather as a vast reflection on the seemingly aleatory nature of modern life and cinema’s potential to intersect with it in a ludic fashion. As Rivette himself put it, "'play', in all senses of the word, was the only idea."
The Beacon Cinema will present the entirety of OUT 1 over the course of two days, February 7th and 8th. Don't miss your chance to experience this incomparable masterpiece in the cinema!
Jacques Rivette, co-founder of the French New Wave, has always been that group's most free-spirited and aesthetically radical member. This is very much on display in OUT 1, his magnum opus, in which a whimsical young man (Jean-Pierre Léaud) receives anonymous notes that put him on the trail of a mysterious group of people who might or might not be conspirators.
Based on an utterly unique concept that includes the absence of a script and nods to Honoré de Balzac and Lewis Carroll, OUT 1 is a sprawling giant of a film and an enriching and timeless reference. One way to understand this mammoth work is as a product of the dawning realization, at the beginning of the 1970s, that the utopian hopes of the previous decade were not going to be realized. Always one to express himself playfully and indirectly, Rivette builds this sprawling epic around the vague notion of a vast conspiracy that may control everything or nothing.
Much of the film unfolds almost like a board game: the moves of various characters were set up to produce episodic encounters whose exact content was often not determined in advance. What gradually emerges is a filmic labyrinth whose cumulative force is received not so much as a unified narrative or accrued meaning, but rather as a vast reflection on the seemingly aleatory nature of modern life and cinema’s potential to intersect with it in a ludic fashion. As Rivette himself put it, "'play', in all senses of the word, was the only idea."
The Beacon Cinema will present the entirety of OUT 1 over the course of two days, February 7th and 8th. Don't miss your chance to experience this incomparable masterpiece in the cinema!
