Histoires extraordinaires
Encyclopedia
Histoires extraordinaires (dubbed Spirits of the Dead for English and Tre Passi Nel Delirio for Italian) is a 1968 "omnibus" film
comprising three segments. The French title Histoires extraordinaires (translated to English as Extraordinary Stories) is from the first collection of Poe's short stories translated by French poet Charles Baudelaire
; the English title Spirits of the Dead is from a poem by Poe.
American International Pictures
distributed this horror anthology film
featuring three stories by Edgar Allan Poe
directed by European directors Roger Vadim
, Louis Malle
and Federico Fellini
. Jane Fonda
, Alain Delon
, Peter Fonda
, Brigitte Bardot
, and Terence Stamp
are among the stars. The English language version features narration by Vincent Price
.
The film received a mixed critical reception, with the Fellini segment widely regarded as the best of the three. Reviewing the picture under its English language title Spirits of the Dead, Vincent Canby of The New York Times
wrote that "Toby Dammit, the first new Fellini to be seen here since Juliet of the Spirits
in 1965, is marvelous: a short movie but a major one. The Vadim is as overdecorated and shrill as a drag ball, but still quite fun, and the Malle, based on one of Poe's best stories, is simply tedious."
In 2008, Toby Dammit was separately restored under the personal supervision of its renowned cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno
. A new 35mm print was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival
, where it was widely acclaimed by the press as a lost Fellini masterpiece.
. The original stories were "Metzengerstein
", "William Wilson
" and "Never Bet the Devil Your Head".
. She becomes enamored with Wilhelm, but he rejects her for her wicked ways. His rejection infuriates Federica and she sets his stables on fire—Wilhelm is killed attempting to save his prized horse
s.
One black horse somehow escapes and makes its way to the Metzengerstein castle. The horse is very wild and Federica takes it upon herself to tame it. She notices at one point that a damaged tapestry
depicts a horse eerily similar to the one that she has just taken in. Become obsessed with it, she orders its repair. During a thunderstorm
, Federica is carried off by the spooked horse into a fire caused by lightning
that has struck.
is occupied by Austria
n forces. A man named William Wilson rushes to confess
to a priest
(in a church of the "Città alta" of Bergamo
) that he has committed murder
. Wilson then relates the story of his cruel ways throughout his life. While playing cards, his doppelgänger
, also named William Wilson, convinces people that Wilson has cheated at cards. In a rage, the protagonist Wilson stabs the other. After making his confession, Wilson commits suicide
by jumping from the tower of "Palazzo della Ragione" but finally seen with a knife stuck on his breast.
. After helping a young girl who has lost her ball, Dammit begins to have visions of the girl and the ball. After being awarded his Ferrari at a large ceremony, Dammit rushes, inebriated, in his new car. Workers try to get Dammit to stop the car at a fallen bridge across a ravine, but Dammit speeds ahead. When his car reaches the other side, Dammit's head has been cut off by a wire that was stretched across the ravine. The young girl is seen again. Total time of this short 37 minutes.
, which also starred Jane Fonda
. Scriptwriter and novelist Terry Southern
, who had worked on the screenplay for Barbarella, travelled to Rome
with Vadim and according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, it was during the making of this segment that Peter Fonda told Southern of his idea to make a 'modern Western' movie. Southern was enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to work on the project, which eventually became the renowned independent film Easy Rider
.
Louis Malle accepted the job of directing the segment “William Wilson” in order to raise money for his next film Le Souffle au coeur
(Murmur of the Heart). The financial process of raising money for Murmur took him three years after completing “William Wilson” and in the meantime he shot two documentaries about India. Malle stated that he did not consider his collaboration in Histoires Extraordinaires a very personal one and that he agreed to make some compromises with the producer, Raymond Eger, in order to make the film more attractive to mainstream spectators. Malle’s original conception of the film was closer to Poe’s tale than the final result. The most important changes were: casting Brigitte Bardot
in the role of Giuseppina with the purpose of adding some erotic touches to the film, the inclusion of the dissection scene, and a somewhat explicit use of violence in some scenes.
The Fellini segment, which shares so little with its source in Poe that it could almost be considered an original piece, is notable for its visual and thematic similarities to three earlier Fellini masterworks. The disintegrating protagonist and the hellish celebrity demimonde he inhabits are reminiscent of both La Dolce Vita
and 8½
, while the interweaving of dreams and hallucinations into the plotline and the use of highly artificial art direction to reflect inner states resemble similar techniques used in 8½
and Juliet of the Spirits
. Fellini rejected Poe's version of the devil, a lame old gentleman with his hair parted in front like a girl’s, and cast a 22 yr old Russian woman (Marina Yaru) to a play the devil as a young girl. Lending a "pedophiliac slant" to Toby's character, Fellini explained that "a man with a black cape and a beard was the wrong kind of devil for a drugged, hipped actor. His devil must be his own immaturity, hence, a child".
Toby Dammit was something of a comeback attempt for Fellini, whose stab at a science fiction film, The Voyage of G. Mastorna, had collapsed in preproduction in 1966 owing to combined creative and health crises, leaving the director deeply in debt to producer Dino De Laurentiis
. With Fellini's consent, De Laurentiis sold the note to producer Alberto Grimaldi
, Fellini's collaborator here. Toby Dammit is also notable as Fellini's first collaboration with the cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno
, who would photograph seven of the eleven remaining feature films in the Fellini oeuvre.
In June 1967, the press announced that Orson Welles
would direct one segment based on both "Masque of the Red Death
" and "The Cask of Amontillado
". Welles withdrew in September 1967 and was replaced by Fellini. The script, written in English by Welles and Oja Kodar
, is in the Filmmuseum München collection.
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
comprising three segments. The French title Histoires extraordinaires (translated to English as Extraordinary Stories) is from the first collection of Poe's short stories translated by French poet Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
; the English title Spirits of the Dead is from a poem by Poe.
American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
distributed this horror anthology film
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
featuring three stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
directed by European directors Roger Vadim
Roger Vadim
Roger Vadim was a French screenwriter, director, and producer as well as a journalist, author and actor, who launched Brigitte Bardot's career in the film And God Created Woman.-Early life:...
, Louis Malle
Louis Malle
Louis Malle was a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He worked in both French cinema and Hollywood. His films include Ascenseur pour l'échafaud , Atlantic City , and Au revoir, les enfants .- Early years in France :Malle was born into a wealthy industrialist family in Thumeries,...
and Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
. Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
, Peter Fonda
Peter Fonda
Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda...
, Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
, and Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
are among the stars. The English language version features narration by Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
.
The film received a mixed critical reception, with the Fellini segment widely regarded as the best of the three. Reviewing the picture under its English language title Spirits of the Dead, Vincent Canby of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote that "Toby Dammit, the first new Fellini to be seen here since Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits is a 1965 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini that uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape"...
in 1965, is marvelous: a short movie but a major one. The Vadim is as overdecorated and shrill as a drag ball, but still quite fun, and the Malle, based on one of Poe's best stories, is simply tedious."
In 2008, Toby Dammit was separately restored under the personal supervision of its renowned cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno
Giuseppe Rotunno
Giuseppe Rotunno, A.S.C., A.I.C. is an Italian cinematographer. Sometimes credited as Peppino Rotunno, he was director of photography on eight films by Federico Fellini...
. A new 35mm print was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
, where it was widely acclaimed by the press as a lost Fellini masterpiece.
Stories
All three segments are based on stories written by Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. The original stories were "Metzengerstein
Metzengerstein
"Metzengerstein", also called "Metzengerstein: A Tale In Imitation of the German", was the first short story by American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe to see print. It was first published in the pages of Philadelphia's Saturday Courier magazine, in 1832...
", "William Wilson
William Wilson (short story)
"William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years outside of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgänger and is written in a style based on rationality...
" and "Never Bet the Devil Your Head".
"Metzengerstein" segment
At the age of 22, Countess Federica inherits the Metzengerstein estate and lives a life of promiscuity and debauchery. While in the forest, her leg is caught in a trap and she is freed by her neighbor Baron Wilhelm, whom she has never met because of a long-standing family feudFeud
A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight between parties—often groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one party perceives itself to have been attacked, insulted or wronged by another...
. She becomes enamored with Wilhelm, but he rejects her for her wicked ways. His rejection infuriates Federica and she sets his stables on fire—Wilhelm is killed attempting to save his prized horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s.
One black horse somehow escapes and makes its way to the Metzengerstein castle. The horse is very wild and Federica takes it upon herself to tame it. She notices at one point that a damaged tapestry
Tapestry
Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...
depicts a horse eerily similar to the one that she has just taken in. Become obsessed with it, she orders its repair. During a thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
, Federica is carried off by the spooked horse into a fire caused by lightning
Lightning
Lightning is an atmospheric electrostatic discharge accompanied by thunder, which typically occurs during thunderstorms, and sometimes during volcanic eruptions or dust storms...
that has struck.
"William Wilson" segment
During the 19th century, northern ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
is occupied by Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n forces. A man named William Wilson rushes to confess
Confession
This article is for the religious practice of confessing one's sins.Confession is the acknowledgment of sin or wrongs...
to a priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
(in a church of the "Città alta" of Bergamo
Bergamo
Bergamo is a town and comune in Lombardy, Italy, about 40 km northeast of Milan. The comune is home to over 120,000 inhabitants. It is served by the Orio al Serio Airport, which also serves the Province of Bergamo, and to a lesser extent the metropolitan area of Milan...
) that he has committed murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. Wilson then relates the story of his cruel ways throughout his life. While playing cards, his doppelgänger
Doppelgänger
In fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
, also named William Wilson, convinces people that Wilson has cheated at cards. In a rage, the protagonist Wilson stabs the other. After making his confession, Wilson commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by jumping from the tower of "Palazzo della Ragione" but finally seen with a knife stuck on his breast.
"Toby Dammit" segment
Former Shakespearean actor Toby Dammit is losing his acting career as he is tempted by alcohol. He agrees to work on a film where he will be paid with a FerrariFerrari
Ferrari S.p.A. is an Italian sports car manufacturer based in Maranello, Italy. Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, as Scuderia Ferrari, the company sponsored drivers and manufactured race cars before moving into production of street-legal vehicles as Ferrari S.p.A. in 1947...
. After helping a young girl who has lost her ball, Dammit begins to have visions of the girl and the ball. After being awarded his Ferrari at a large ceremony, Dammit rushes, inebriated, in his new car. Workers try to get Dammit to stop the car at a fallen bridge across a ravine, but Dammit speeds ahead. When his car reaches the other side, Dammit's head has been cut off by a wire that was stretched across the ravine. The young girl is seen again. Total time of this short 37 minutes.
Production
Roger Vadim's segment was filmed just after Vadim had completed shooting on his previous movie BarbarellaBarbarella (film)
Barbarella is a 1968 Franco-Italian science fiction film based on Jean-Claude Forrest's French Barbarella comics. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.-Plot:...
, which also starred Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
. Scriptwriter and novelist Terry Southern
Terry Southern
Terry Southern was an American author, essayist, screenwriter and university lecturer, noted for his distinctive satirical style...
, who had worked on the screenplay for Barbarella, travelled to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
with Vadim and according to Southern's biographer Lee Hill, it was during the making of this segment that Peter Fonda told Southern of his idea to make a 'modern Western' movie. Southern was enthusiastic about the idea and agreed to work on the project, which eventually became the renowned independent film Easy Rider
Easy Rider
Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
.
Louis Malle accepted the job of directing the segment “William Wilson” in order to raise money for his next film Le Souffle au coeur
Murmur of the Heart
Murmur of the Heart is a 1971 French film by French director Louis Malle that tells a coming of age story about a 14-year-old boy growing up in bourgeois surroundings in post-World War II Dijon, France. The film proved to be a box office success across Europe, gaining 2,652,870 admissions in...
(Murmur of the Heart). The financial process of raising money for Murmur took him three years after completing “William Wilson” and in the meantime he shot two documentaries about India. Malle stated that he did not consider his collaboration in Histoires Extraordinaires a very personal one and that he agreed to make some compromises with the producer, Raymond Eger, in order to make the film more attractive to mainstream spectators. Malle’s original conception of the film was closer to Poe’s tale than the final result. The most important changes were: casting Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a French former fashion model, actress, singer and animal rights activist. She was one of the best-known sex-symbols of the 1960s.In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer...
in the role of Giuseppina with the purpose of adding some erotic touches to the film, the inclusion of the dissection scene, and a somewhat explicit use of violence in some scenes.
The Fellini segment, which shares so little with its source in Poe that it could almost be considered an original piece, is notable for its visual and thematic similarities to three earlier Fellini masterworks. The disintegrating protagonist and the hellish celebrity demimonde he inhabits are reminiscent of both La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita
La Dolce Vita is a 1960 comedy-drama film written and directed by the critically acclaimed director Federico Fellini. The film is a story of a passive journalist's week in Rome, and his search for both happiness and love that will never come...
and 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
, while the interweaving of dreams and hallucinations into the plotline and the use of highly artificial art direction to reflect inner states resemble similar techniques used in 8½
8½
8½ is a 1963 Italian fantasy film directed by Federico Fellini. Co-scripted by Fellini, Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano, and Brunello Rondi, it stars Marcello Mastroianni as Guido Anselmi, a famous Italian film director...
and Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits
Juliet of the Spirits is a 1965 Italian film directed by Federico Fellini that uses "caricatural types and dream situations to represent a psychic landscape"...
. Fellini rejected Poe's version of the devil, a lame old gentleman with his hair parted in front like a girl’s, and cast a 22 yr old Russian woman (Marina Yaru) to a play the devil as a young girl. Lending a "pedophiliac slant" to Toby's character, Fellini explained that "a man with a black cape and a beard was the wrong kind of devil for a drugged, hipped actor. His devil must be his own immaturity, hence, a child".
Toby Dammit was something of a comeback attempt for Fellini, whose stab at a science fiction film, The Voyage of G. Mastorna, had collapsed in preproduction in 1966 owing to combined creative and health crises, leaving the director deeply in debt to producer Dino De Laurentiis
Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis was an Italian film producer.-Early life:He was born at Torre Annunziata in the province of Naples, and grew up selling spaghetti produced by his father...
. With Fellini's consent, De Laurentiis sold the note to producer Alberto Grimaldi
Alberto Grimaldi
Alberto Grimaldi is an Italian film producer.He was born in Naples. He is credited with producing some of the most famous films in film history including "For A Few Dollars More" in 1965, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966, Last Tango in Paris in 1972 and Gangs of New York in...
, Fellini's collaborator here. Toby Dammit is also notable as Fellini's first collaboration with the cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno
Giuseppe Rotunno
Giuseppe Rotunno, A.S.C., A.I.C. is an Italian cinematographer. Sometimes credited as Peppino Rotunno, he was director of photography on eight films by Federico Fellini...
, who would photograph seven of the eleven remaining feature films in the Fellini oeuvre.
In June 1967, the press announced that Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
would direct one segment based on both "Masque of the Red Death
Masque of the Red Death
Masque of the Red Death is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, named after the Edgar Allan Poe short story of the same name. The setting was published after the release of the Ravenloft campaign setting and is regarded as an add-on for that line...
" and "The Cask of Amontillado
The Cask of Amontillado
"The Cask of Amontillado" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the November 1846 issue of Godey's Lady's Book....
". Welles withdrew in September 1967 and was replaced by Fellini. The script, written in English by Welles and Oja Kodar
Oja Kodar
Oja Kodar is a Croatian actress, screenwriter and director, best known as the girlfriend of Orson Welles for the last 24 years of his life.-Life:...
, is in the Filmmuseum München collection.