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Reimagining the criminal: the marketing of Louis Feuillade’s Fantômas (1913–14) and Les Vampires (1915) in the United States

2014; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 14; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14715880.2013.875742

1758-9517

Sarah Delahousse,

Crime and Detective Fiction Studies

This article examines the marketing of Louis Feuillade's Fantômas (1913–14) and Les Vampires (1915), arguing that these series' representations of crime and their fascinating criminal antagonists were significantly altered in order to appeal to and compete for an American audience. It also revises previous scholarship that maintained that Fantômas failed in the United States when it was released in 1913; the series enjoyed a prolonged circulation that culminated in a 1916 re-release through an American distributor, the Mutual Film Corporation. The strategy of classifying these notable crime films as detective films, emphasizing the detective figures over the fascinating criminals, depicting the films' criminal element as masculine and distributing these films in weekly installments in the style of American serials indicates Gaumont's concerted effort to culturally negotiate their two most celebrated crime film series to remain commercially viable in a changing international market.