Nuits rouges (1974)

Director:

Georges Franju

Writer:

Jacques Champreux (writer)

Release Date:

May 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Mystery

Plot:

Shadowman, a thief whose head is covered by a red mask, and his cat-suited assistant, try to find the...

Plot Keywords:

Mask

Cast

Gayle Hunnicutt	...	La femme
Jacques Champreux	...	L'homme sans visage
Josephine Chaplin	...	Martine
Ugo Pagliai	...	Paul
Gert Fröbe	...	Le commissaire Sorbier
Patrick Préjean	...	Séraphin
Enzo Fisichella	...	Insp. Péclet
Michel Charrel	...	Le marinier
Micheline Bourday	...	La marinière
Raymond Bussières	...	L'acheteur
Pierre Collet	...	Le Grand Maître des Templiers
Clément Harari	...	Dr. Dutreuil
Gérard Croce	...	La Futaille
Henry Lincoln	...	Prof. Petri
Yvon Sarray	...	Albert
Jean Saudray	...	Le Sacristain
Raoul Guylad	...	Boris
Jean Solar	...	Prof. Landier
May Chartrette	...	Mme Lépié (as May Chartrettes)
Jacques Aveline	...	Le marchand de journaux
Michel Paulin	...	Insp. Florent
André Jaud	...	Insp. Lenfant

Directed by
Georges Franju

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Jacques Champreux		writer

Produced by
Raymond Froment	....	producer

Original Music by
Georges Franju

Cinematography by
Guido Bertoni

Film Editing by
Gilles Mathot
Gilbert Natot

Production Design by
Robert Luchaire

Sound Department
Robert Beauchamp	....	sound

Production Companies

• New Line Cinema
• SOAT
• TF1
• Terra Films

Distributors

• New Line Cinema (1975) (USA) (theatrical) (dubbed)
• Connoisseur (UK)
• Cult Video (USA) (VHS)
• New Cinema Enterprises (1983) (Canada) (as "Shadowman") (dubbed)

Also Known As:

Shadowman

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG

Company:

New Line Cinema

Back to Feuillade

After several uneven productions -including a Zola adaptation : "la Faute de l'Abbé Mouret"- ,Georges Franju (whose best works remain his shorts and his two first feature-films "La Tete Contre les Murs" and "les Yeux sans Visage" plus maybe "Therese Desqueyroux" )said goodbye to cinema with a return to Feuillade .A first homage was released in 1963 with his remake of "Judex" which was not bad.

"Les Nuits Rouges" is more "Judex" ,but the problem lies in the fact that it's a digest of a TV miniseries.The far-fetched plot (and I mean far-fetched) is also handicapped by amateurish acting (an international cast including Gert "Goldfinger" Froebe as a Police Inspector and poor acting by Chaplin,Champreux and Préjean.Gayle Hunnicutt ,cast as a seventies Musidora,complete with mask and tights ,is pretty photogenic on the roofs but that's all we can say of her performance.The Shadowman is none other than Fantomas,Souvestre-Allain's hero whose adventures were also transferred to the screen by Feuillade.

Actually,those adventures could have succeeded well in Old Paris,the Paris from the beginning of the XX th century,in the Fortifications and in the Bas-Fonds .In Paris 1974,they seem obsolete,uninteresting and dull.Enough is enough.