Toby Dammit

One Saturday afternoon was flipping through the channels and just happened to stumble upon this. Immediately I recognized it as Fellini, but it was one had never seen before. I had missed a little of the beginning and didn't realize that it was part of an anthology of Poe stories down by three different directors. It'd be years before I got to see it in its entirety and the Fellini segment was by far the best. I was very happy when it was included in the Essential Fellini box set released by the Criterion Collection, using the version I had seen which has Terrance Stamp's actual voice rather being dubbed by an anonymous Italian actor. (This, in my opinion, is the best version to watch.) Even for Fellini this is bizarre. Terrance Stamp plays a burned out English actor arriving in Italy to make a "Catholic Western" and he's being pursued by a mysterious girl with long white hair and holding a large white ball. We learn that this is the devil from.an interview he gives on Italian television. The story is based very loosely based on the Poe story Never Bet the Devil Your Head, but there is little of the story in the film. It gets progressively stranger as it goes and ends with him racing his new car along narrow roads, hopelessly lost, trying to get back to Rome. It all feels like a nightmare you might have.