Fantômas is a 1964 French film starring Jean Marais

Jean Marais

-Biography:A native of Cherbourg, France, Marais starred in several movies directed by Jean Cocteau, for a time his lover, most famously Beauty and the Beast and Orphée ....

 as the arch villain with the same name opposite Louis de Funès

Louis de Funès

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was a very popular French actor who is one of the giants of French comedy alongside André Bourvil and Fernandel...

 as the earnest but outclassed commissaire

Commissioner

Commissioner is in principle the title given to a member of a commission or to an individual who has been given a commission ....

 Paul Juve. In the film Juve teams up with journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 Fandor, also played by Marais, trying to catch Fantômas but never quite succeeding. It was France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

's answer, in 1964, to the James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 phenomenon that swept the world at around the same time. It is the first ever of a trilogy

Trilogy

A trilogy is a set of three works of art that are connected, and that can be seen either as a single work or as three individual works. They are commonly found in literature, film, or video games...

 film, that Fantômas became extremely successful in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 and Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, it found also success even in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 where fan websites exist to this day. Mylène Demongeot

Mylène Demongeot

Mylène Demongeot is a French actress, who has appeared in 72 films since 1953. She was born Marie-Hélène Demongeot in Nice, Southern France....

 plays Hélène. Hélène Gurn is the girlfriend of Jérôme Fandor, Fantômas' arch enemy.
The general tone of the films is more light-hearted than the original Fantômas novels

Fantômas

Fantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre .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...

. Commissaire Juve, as played by Louis de Funès, becomes a comedic

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

 character, much different from his literary

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 counterpart

Fantômas

Fantômas is a fictional character created by French writers Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre .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...

.

Plot

Fantômas is a man of many disguises. He uses maquillage as a weapon. He can impersonate anyone using an array of masks and can create endless confusion by constantly changing his appearance. In the first episode of the series he is unhappy with Fandor, because of a fictitious interview the journalist wrote about him. He takes his revenge by abducting Fandor and threatening to kill him. He then uses his formidable makeup skills to commit a spectacular crime while disguised like Fandor. When commissaire Juve joins the chase, chameleon

Chameleon

Chameleons are a distinctive and highly specialized clade of lizards. They are distinguished by their parrot-like zygodactylous feet, their separately mobile and stereoscopic eyes, their very long, highly modified, and rapidly extrudable tongues, their swaying gait, the possession by many of a...

-like Fantômas promptly commits a crime wearing a mask looking like Juve. In the end Fandor, Juve and Fandor's girlfriend Hélène are all on the master criminal's trail, all to no avail as the man of a thousand masks finally manages to escape.

Cast

Actor	Character
Jean Marais	Fantômas
Jean Marais	Fandor
Louis de Funès	Commissioner Juve
Mylène Demongeot	Hélène Gurn

Release

The film was released in France on 4 November 1964 and in the United States on 5 April 1966.

The Fantômas trilogy

Title	Release date
Fantômas	4 November 1964
Fantômas se déchaîne Fantômas se déchaîne Fantômas se déchaîne is a 1965 film starring Jean Marais as the arch villain with the same name opposite Louis de Funès as the earnest but outclassed commissaire Juve and the journalist Fandor, also played by Marais. It was France's answer, with the Fantômas trilogy starting in 1964, to the James...	8 December 1965
Fantômas contre Scotland Yard Fantômas contre Scotland Yard Fantômas contre Scotland Yard is the final installment of a trilogy of films starring Jean Marais as the arch villain with the same name opposite Louis de Funès as the earnest but outclassed commissaire Juve and the journalist Fandor, also played by Marais. The trilogy was France's answer,...	16 March 1967