The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge
About The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge
Julien Boissel is engaged to Yvonne Vincent. Her father, the diplomat Victor Vincent, is against the match. The publisher Gauthier blackmails Victor and says he will give up the papers if he may marry Yvonne. She agrees, to spare her father. At the Moulin-Rouge, the depressed Julien lets Dr. Window put him into a trance. His spirit leaves his body and wanders Paris: coats walk out of a hotel cloakroom, a taxi drives off with nobody in it, top hats line a pavement. Police find the body and charge Window with murder. An autopsy is set. If it happens, Julien cannot return. He takes Gauthier's papers to Yvonne and gets back into his body just before the autopsy. Window is cleared. Julien and Yvonne are together.
Cast & crew
More about The Phantom of the Moulin-Rouge
René Clair wrote, directed, and edited it from a novel by Walter Schlee. It was made in 1924 and released in France on March 13, 1925. Jimmy Berliet and Louis Chaix photographed it. Robert Gys designed the sets. The French title is Le Fantôme du Moulin-Rouge. Wikidata lists 90 minutes. The English Wikipedia lists 70 minutes.
Themes
Making
Clair stages the empty clothes and the driverless taxi as the visible half of a man who is still lying on a table.
Look
Jimmy Berliet and Louis Chaix shot the Paris streets and the nightclub.
Notes
- Georges Vaultier plays Julien. Sandra Milovanoff plays Yvonne. Maurice Schutz plays Victor Vincent. Paul Ollivier plays Dr. Window. José Davert plays Gauthier. Albert Préjean plays the reporter Jean Degland. Madeleine Rodrigue plays Jacqueline.
- The spirit jokes are practical: a row of coats, an empty taxi, hats on the pavement.
- The Moulin-Rouge is where Window makes the experiment, not where the haunting stays.
Scenes
- A row of coats leaves a hotel cloakroom with nobody inside them.
- An empty taxi drives itself off.
- Julien slips back into his body as the autopsy is about to start.
Influenced by
- Walter Schlee's novel
