:: MovieRank.com ::: Histoires extraordinaires (1968) Federico Fellini / Louis Malle / Roger Vadim

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Histoires extraordinaires (1968) Federico Fellini / Louis Malle / Roger Vadim

Histoires extraordinaires (1968) aka Spirits Of The Dead

Genre: Horror | Arthouse
Director: Federico Fellini/Louis Malle/Roger Vadim
Country: France/Italy
Language: French or Spanish (Dual audio)
Subtitles: English (.srt file)
Aspect Ratio: Widescreen 1.85:1
Length: 121mn
File: Dvdrip Xvid Avi - 640x368 - 23fps - 1.48gb

Cast: Brigitte Bardot, Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, James Robertson Justice, Salvo Randone, Françoise Prévost, Anny Duperey

Description:
Three top European directors take on the works of Edgar Allan Poe.

Roger Vadim's "Metzengerstein" is incredibly beautiful. It was shot around great-looking, crumbling oceanfront castles and is remarkably photographed, costumed and scored, it's just a shame the core plotting is so weak. The evil Baroness Frederique (Jane Fonda, the directors wife at the time) is an insatiable tyrant who presides over orgies and sadistic, dehumanizing games. When she destroys a pure soul, her distant cousin Wilhelm (Peter Fonda), horses and fire play a key role in her demise.

"William Wilson," by Louis Malle, is an entertaining reworking of the old doppelganger theme starring Alain Delon as a pure lout AND his better half, a exact copy who drives him crazy by putting a halt to his evil impulses. Odd story structure here and Brigitte Bardot (in a black wig) is good support during a fateful card game. And then comes the really good stuff.

"Toby Dammit" (released separately as "Never Bet the Devil Your Head"), a brilliant and sometimes chilling piece of enigmatic film-making from Federico Fellini. Terence Stamp is a marvel of facial expressions as boozy, obnoxious British movie star Toby Dammit, who falls apart at the seems upon arriving in Italy to start production on a Western reworking of the story of Christ. Instead he becomes imprisoned in his own personal hell. In every possible technical department, this segment is a triumph and the creepy finale (borrowing a key image from Mario Bava's KILL, BABY, KILL!) has lost absolutely none of its impact.
IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063715/