Fantomas Against Fantomas (1914)
*** (out of 4)
Fourth film in the series has Inspector Juve coming under attack by the newspapers because certain editors begin to think that if he can't catch Fantomas it must be because he's actually Fantomas. Juve is thrown in jail where he begins to rot but while inside the real Fantomas sets up his next score and soon the police realize that they've made a mistake. Many fans consider this the best entry in the series and while I found it to be good at the same time it's nowhere near the quality of the previous film. I think the biggest problem is that the story is beginning to get so far-fetched that I'm having a hard time believing some of the "mystery" of the characters and at times things get so confusing that it's rather hard to follow. In this episode the inspector is in prison so Fantomas takes the identity of an American cop and begins to have his crew members arrested. This is a tad bit too out there for my liking but there are still quite a few good moments in the film. One such moment is the second portion of the film dealing with the "bleeding wall", which is one of the better sequences in the series. There's another good bit at a party where at least three possibly versions of Fantomas shows up but after a while this too just adds to the confusion. Navarre and Breon keep up their fine work as Fantomas and Juve as both are certainly very comfortable in their roles by this point. Georges Melchior appears briefly as Fandor and he too is in good form. Feuillade doesn't have much style once again but he at least keeps the film moving well as the 60-minute running time goes by without any glitches.
