1968, Roger Vadim, Louis Malle, Frederico Fellini, 121 mins.
Three Poe stories by three directors.
Spirits of the Dead
was made towards the end of the 1960s vogue for multi-part films from voguish
directors. It collects together three Edgar Allen Poe stories with varying
degrees of success. Roger Vadim turns Metzergerstein
, Poe’s first published story, into a highly amusing riot of Freudian
symbolism featuring the leather clad Fonda siblings and a big black stallion.
Louis Malle demonstrates a Sadean bent in William
Wilson as Alain Delon, plagued by his seemingly omnipresent and omniscient double,
subjects Brigitte Bardot to a whipping which is not in the original story. Finally,
and most satisfyingly, Fellini offers us Toby
Dammit, a funny and deeply disturbing fantasia set in 1960s Rome during which
an alcoholic Shakesperean actor, memorably played by Terence Stamp, makes a decidedly
unwise wager with the Devil – the patter personified as an unforgettably creepy
little girl.
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