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Voidsville Follies

Works featuring "lady or gentleman thief" (6)

Bold Bank Robbery

Jack Frawley (director/writer)
Lubin (production)

Language: Silent, released in Jul 1904
Minutes: 6

Assault, carjacking, armed robbery - then the action starts... Not usually cited as a significant or influential film, yet it contains a number of elements that were not commonly found in films at that time, but later were widely used.

Featured elements:

: action; antihero; automobile; bookends; chase; crime; emblematic shot; heist; lady or gentleman thief; noir

Fantômas (Serial)

Louis Feuillade (director/writer)
Georges Guérin (cinematographer)
Marcel Allain (author)
Pierre Souvestre (author)
André Luguet (lead)
André Volbert (lead)
Edmund Breon (lead)
Fabienne Fabrèges (lead)
Georges Melchior (lead)
Jane Faber (lead)
Laurent Morléas (lead)
Naudier (lead)
Renée Carl (lead)
René Navarre (lead)
Yvette Andréyor (lead)
Gaumont (production)

Language: Silent, French titles, English subtitles, released in May 1913

Fantômas is the first famous film criminal mastermind. Like all criminal masterminds, he is pursued by a shrewd and determined detective - Inspector Juve. But unlike other police detectives in film, Juve is no hero, no pompous know-it-all. Yet, unlike noir private detectives, Juve isn't portrayed as an antihero. Juve is simply a loser - a loser who is unstylish, seems to have no family or love life, and tends toward despondence and chain-smoking. In short, Juve is the soul of this flick, giving it its uniquely modern feel. And, for those of us that normally root for the bad guys, Juve is the only detective we can comfortably cheer for - because we know he will lose.

Featured elements:

: action; alter ego; animal act; antihero; bad cop; chase; corruption; crime; criminal mastermind; detective; execution; falsely accused; identity mix-up; lady or gentleman thief; manipulator; master of disguise; newsroom; police procedural; prison; rescue; sidekick; suspense; train; undercover agent; unstoppable menace

Alias Jimmy Valentine

Maurice Tourneur (director)
O. Henry (author)
Robert Warwick (lead)
Ruth Shepley (lead)
Johnny Hines (lead)
Peerless (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Feb 1915
Minutes: 65

Despite the staunchly corny story of redemption, this is redeemed by its inventive proto-noir visuals (and a "haunted by the past" plot that would become a noir theme), colorful characters, and a story full of nuances yet told with very few title cards. Also includes Sing Sing prison yard scenes that appear authentic, as several prisoners can clearly be seen to be hiding their faces from the camera.

Featured elements:

: action; antihero; comic sidekick; crime; death scene; detective; ex-con; lady or gentleman thief; noir; prison; redemption; rescue; romance; sidekick; train

Filibus

Mario Roncoroni (director)
Giovanni Bertinetti (writer)
Luigi Fiorio (cinematographer)
Valeria Creti (lead)
Giovanni Spano (lead)
Cristina Ruspoli (lead)
Corona (production)

Language: Silent, English titles, Spanish subtitles, released in Mar 1915
Minutes: 76

Before Mabuse, there was Fantomas - an earlier take on the criminal mastermind outwitting the detective through deception and disguise. Following the success of Fantomas, came the master criminal Filibus in this story (which also seems to have gotten some inspiration from Jules Verne's "Master of the World"). But while Fantomas and Mabuse are murderous psychos, Filibus seems to be just having fun bouncing between genders, flirting first with the brother then the sister. Is Filibus really a baroness - or a woman at all - or is that just another disguise?

Featured elements:

: action; alter ego; antihero; crime; criminal mastermind; cross-dressing; detective; falsely accused; fantasy; gender-bender; heist; lady or gentleman thief; manipulator; sci-fi; undercover agent; unrequited love; unstoppable menace

Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman

George Irving (director)
Harry B. Harris (cinematographer)
Anthony Paul Kelly (writer)
Eugene Wiley Presbrey (writer)
E.W. Hornung (author)
John Barrymore (lead)
Frank Morgan (lead)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Dec 1917
Minutes: 65

For any hardcore fan of suavecito-smooth, the first few minutes of Barrymore profiling is a fun ride. But it quickly gets old and repetitive. And any hope for mystery is dashed when it becomes apparent that every kid on the block knows that Raffles is "secretly" the Amateur Cracksman. And those who don't know, he reveals it to them. With a villain with no real commitment to skulking or skullduggery, and a story with none of the twists and turns of Fantomas flicks, there's nothing much to see here but the stereotypical American imitation of upper-class British.

Featured elements:

: alter ego; antihero; crime; detective; lady or gentleman thief; male bonding; servitude; suicide; unrequited love

The Spiders (Serial)

Fritz Lang (director/writer)
Karl Freund (cinematographer)
Carl de Vogt (lead)
Georg John (lead)
Lil Dagover (lead)
Ressel Orla (lead)
Erich Pommer (producer)

Language: Silent, English titles, released in Oct 1919

While in hot pursuit of conspicuous leisure, a delusional elite spots a bottle trashed in the sea. For no apparent reason, he takes it home and struggles to get to the urgent message he has convinced himself is inside (not wanting to simply break the valuable trashy bottle). He claims the bottle contained an urgent message (although its pedantry seems quite incongruent with the circumstances under which it was purportedly written). The message tells of “unbelievable treasures” and a gold mine “which appears to be inexhaustible” (claims that modern viewers will be familiar with from their encounters with the bottle's cyber-twin: scam spam). When he spins this tale to his fellow elites at Club Inbreeders, it gets picked up by an agent of a diabolical gullible mastermind, and leads to an intensely silly spectacle of competing blundering murderous international thieves - with one posing as White Savior - that modern viewers will be familiar with from their encounters with its political-twin: the new “Cold War”.

Featured elements:

: addiction; adventure; anti-colonialism; chase; Chinatown; corruption; cowboys; crime; criminal mastermind; ethnic stereotype; femme fatale; fighting; flashback; gambling; gangs; heroic defender; home invasion; hypnosis; lady or gentleman thief; melodrama; message in a bottle; religion; rescue; revenge; servitude; torture; treachery; unrequited love; white savior; yellow peril

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